Kenya: Democracy Must Work for Every Citizen

Kenya: Democracy Must Work for Every Citizen

http://allafrica.com/stories/200801221367.html


OPINION23 January 2008Posted to the web 22 January 2008
Ashish ShahNairobi
"Concentration of authority marks almost all present political systems which have become unwieldy and top-heavy: be they capitalist, socialist or communist systems. The individuals count no more, though as voters they are styled as masters. They present themselves at periodical elections for casting votes and then sleep away until the next one.
"This is the only political action the individual performs once in a stipulated period. That he is driven to do under the directions of a centralised party system, and guidance of the newspapers which are the main tools of the centralised economic powers. The individual has little or no voice in the shaping of the policy of government. In a welfare state or a totalitarian regime the individual is reduced to the position of a dumb, driven animal in human form"

- M. K. Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest beacons for peace and justice of our time had always warned about the challenge and limits of a democracy that is narrowly defined by electoral cycles, where the only engagement citizens have with their governance is at the ballot box, and then for the remaining five years, citizens naively expect those they elected to be selfless, benevolent servants of the people with the interest of the nation at heart.
The unfolding election debacle has confirmed Gandhi's concerns with narrowly defined electoral democracy and truly made many Kenyans feel like dumb, driven animals in human form.
One of the things as Kenyans we feel dumb and driven about is the inability of figures to add up.
Parliamentary votes
In 1997, 15 candidates contested the presidency. Kanu, the then ruling party, had President Daniel Moi as its flag bearer. Mwai Kibaki stood on the Democratic Party ticket, Raila Odinga on the National Development Party, Charity Ngilu on Social Democratic Party and Michael Wamalwa on Ford Kenya.
Looking at Kenyan voting patterns, the "three-piece suit" emerged to be the voting style of choice, and hence there existed a strong correlation between presidential votes cast and parliamentary votes cast.
Mr Moi won the 1997 presidential elections with 40.6 per cent of the vote followed by Mr Kibaki at 31 per cent, Mr Odinga (10.2 per cent) and Mrs Ngilu at 7.9 per cent.
Kanu won the most parliamentary seats - 97. Out of this 97 seats, 91 constituencies had voted "three piece", with the presidential, parliamentary and civic candidates all elected on a Kanu ticket.
The DP won 60 parliamentary seats, followed by 22 for NDP, 15 for SDP and 14 for Ford Kenya. In all these cases there was a strong correlation between the votes cast for the presidential candidates and the party they represented at the parliamentary and civic level. In 2002, the Opposition united around one presidential candidate, Mr Mwai Kibaki, under the umbrella of the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc).
The united opposition whitewashed Kanu. There was no expectation that the three-piece voting trend would be any different. A presidential vote cast for Narc in a constituency guaranteed that a parliamentary and civic vote would be cast for the same party almost 80 of the time. Narc won 125 parliamentary seats against Kanu's 64 and Ford People third with 14 seats.
The 2002 polls reconfirmed to analysts, like in 1997, that because as Kenyans we tend to vote in a three-piece manner, it was possible to predict that the party with the most seats in Parliament would most likely be the party with the winning presidential candidate. In 1997, this was President Moi with Kanu winning majority seats in Parliament and in 2002 it was President Kibaki securing majority House seats.
In 2007, the electoral results confound analysts who rely on empirical evidence to understand and analyse past and future voting trends. The key battle was between President Kibaki's PNU, Mr Odinga's ODM and ODM-Kenya fielding Mr Kalonzo Musyoka.
In Parliament ODM won 99 seats, rising to 102 if seats won by its Narc affiliate are added. The number has reduced by one with the election of ODM's Kenneth Marende as House Speaker.

PNU won 43 seats, but the number rises to 75 if affiliate parties, including Kanu, are counted. ODM Kenya got 16 seats. The remaining seats went to independent candidates.
If Kenyans voted as they have mostly done - in three-piece format - then it would pre-suppose that the ODM presidential candidate would have won the presidential election. Alternatively, we may have broken away from the previous three-piece voting pattern.
Looking at voting patterns for 2007, whilst the voter turnout was high, voting patterns remained the same as they have always done in 1997 and 2002.

Kenya: Democracy Must Work for Every Citizen (Page 2 of 2)
Majority of Kenyans (88 per cent) adopted the uniform voting pattern.
But in the case of the 2007 election, analysts have had their empirical projections left hanging as despite the fact that three-piece voting took place and despite the fact that ODM and its affiliate won most seats making it a clear majority in Parliament, the ODM presidential candidate did not win.

There are two possible reasons for this. One is that voter turnout was extremely high and the smaller proportion of constituencies that did vote for the PNU presidential candidate had high overall population figures, therefore boosting the figures for President Kibaki.
If this is the case, electoral analysts, and political scientists can conclude that one of the surest ways to win a national election is to have large numbers and national representation doesn't matter any more.
Anyone thinking of winning the 2027 elections can plan now by encouraging their constituents to have a baby boom, so that by 2027 the number of voters who are 18 years and above is high enough, meaning that one doesn't have to win national approval or support from the diversity that is Kenya, to be president.
The fact that President Kibaki may have won with a minority in Parliament demonstrates the challenges and dangers of how it is possible in a diverse society such as Kenya, for some parts of the society to feel disenfranchised and marginalised if the emerging leadership and the political patronage that follows is seen to have been gained from much smaller pot from the diversity that is the country.
Kivuitu's position
The other possibility is that votes were tampered with, but this no one will scientifically know given the time that has passed and given the loss of credibility that the Electoral Commission has suffered. ECK boss Samuel Kivuitu's position, whilst unacceptable from someone in his position, is probably the most plausible - that we do not know who won the 2007 election.
What is clear is that our electoral system has loopholes that do not address adequately issues of equity and representation. The numbers have brought out the already omnipresent and long-term tensions about equity and representation that have defined Kenyan history even before independence. Kenyans must redefine nationalism.
Because we live in a country that is driven by political patronage and where economic growth and benefit is still largely a function of political patronage, it is obvious why many Kenyans are worried of a growing and enshrined ethnic division if leaders do not portray themselves as true nationalists.
This applies to both sides of the political divide. The hurt that exists now in Kenya is a mixture of the effects of entrenched historical patronage that has been catalysed by the inability of current figures to add up.
Whilst political patronage has been a class issue, politicians have used ethnicity to mask class-based patronage.
The truth is that poverty and inequity cut across all ethnic groups. This hurt has unfortunately been channelled into violent and criminal acts. What is worrying is that in all the talks of mediation, reconciliation, healing and dialogue, what seems to be coming out clearly is that the political establishment seems to be only concerned about their own positions of power and not a desire to reunite this beautiful and diverse country of ours with nationalist pride.
What are PNU, ODM and ODM-K really bringing to the mediation and dialogue table?
The one common thing that could unite Kenyans is a real, honest and solid commitment by all three to reform our Constitution to prevent many of the abuses we have all experienced from re-occurring in the future, and to change our Constitution into one that truly devolves power to the people of Kenya.
The contestation of power will not unite us.
It is disappointing to see that neither ODM nor PNU have put constitutional reform on the table. Every Kenyan has a bargaining chip - we all know something went wrong in the 2007 elections and this has uncovered entrenched hurt.
What we need to do is prevent something going wrong for the future and to craft a democracy that is not solely dependent on electoral cycles - our protestation should be for all of us, whatever part of Kenya we come from, to call for a new constitutional order that makes democracy work every day for Kenyans, instead of being a five- year voting affair.

Despite the challenges with democracy, Gandhi was also aware of the need to save and strengthen democracy to prevent further abuse.
"There is no human institution but has its dangers. The greater the institution the greater the chances of abuse. Democracy is a great institution and therefore is liable to be greatly abused. The remedy is not avoidance of democracy but reduction of possibility of abuse to a minimum," he said.

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