My political awakening coincided with the systemic changes that unfolded in December 1991 when President Moi, at a Kanu delegates meeting at Kasarani stadium, repealed Section 2A of the constitution, thereby making Kenya a multi-party state.
The change also enabled the introduction of term limits for the presidency. I was both fascinated and overjoyed by my country’s rapid democratisation. Reading many new publications and attending rallies for newly established democratic political parties, I was swept up by the atmosphere of unbounded hope for our future.
Today, such sentiments seem like childish naivete. Our democracy and the future of our prosperity as a nation are now in grave danger, beset by multifaceted and overlapping crises. Three decades after the second liberation and the fall of the one-party misrule, Kenya is again being forced to confront anti-democratic political forces.
Their actions are akin to those of the Nyayo apologists of yore, only now they run on a platform of authoritarian, ethnic and sectarian populism. They still grumble, like the Kariuki Chotaras, Mulu Mutisyas and Kihika Kimanis of old, about ‘foreign agents’ and ‘enemies of the state’—by which they mean anyone who opposes their shameless greed and theft or policy manipulations.
Their political malpractices have eroded democratic norms and institutions and jettisoned a proud people into poverty and submission.
This unbridled atavistic populism is geared toward only one purpose: to monopolise state power and all its assets. Today, the political dynasties of William Ruto and Raila Odinga have joined hands in the so-called broad-based government with the express intention of capturing the entire state through the deft manipulation of democratic institutions and the corruption of the economy. These enemies of democracy must be defeated and defeated absolutely.
However, to hold Ruto and Raila wholly responsible for the erosion of our democracy is to mistake cause and effect. The roots of our democratic shortcomings run deeper than the truancy of Ruto and Raila, and their eagerness to curtail constitutional rights.
Our democratic backsliding stems from structural issues such as rampant social injustice and inequality. More than anything else, it has been Ruto’s radical decoupling of economic growth from social welfare that has let the illiberal populist genie out of the bottle and broke the democratic consensus in our motherland.
Fellow Kenyans, faced with such challenges, we cannot allow ourselves to succumb to fatalism or apathy. We the people must believe in the promise of human progress. Our institutions and economic policies can be adapted to account for changing circumstances. Injustices that alienate people from democracy can be rectified. Channels for democratic dialogue can be restored.
History attests to the fact that local governance matters. Whether it is through democratic engagement or social investment, grassroots and local-level mobilisation are well positioned to improve citizens’ lives.
Martin Luther King, Jr said that those who want peace must learn to organise as effectively as those who want war. The same is true of democracy. More than simple majority rule, democracy is a governing system based on the will and consent of the governed, institutions that are accountable to all citizens, adherence to the rule of law and respect for the human rights of all people.
Critically, democracies uphold the principle that all human beings are entitled to fundamental rights, including but not limited to the right to free expression, the right to associate and organise, the right to practice one’s religious faith or nonbelief and the right to privacy, to name just a few.
Citizens in a democracy also have the right to participate in the election and administration of their own government. But no democratic government, however freely elected, has the authority to violate fundamental human rights, to which both citizens and noncitizens are entitled.
Upholding and defending democracy is not easy. It requires daily vigilance by all members of society, as well as the active participation of the governed. Democracy can be damaged or even lost when citizens and leaders fail to uphold its basic principles, are willing to undermine its institutions for personal or partisan gain or refuse to extend its rights and protections to all people.
But our long experience has shown that no matter how far we may be from the highest ideals of democracy, people’s desire for the freedom it offers cannot be extinguished, and there will always be fresh opportunities for progress and renewal.
Teaches globalisation and international development at Pwani University