Politics of euphoria

Good people, I must laud you for keeping the peace and tranquility despite a closely contested presidential election. The dust is slowly settling on the hoopla that clouded these 4 March elections. Uhuru Kenyatta won aboard the Jubilee coalition, but CORD has since moved to the Supreme Court to challenge the validity of the victory. The country is waiting with baited breath for the ruling by the highest court on the land. The petition can either succeed or be quashed away by the court. But this is story for another day.  

Pre-election coalitions were formed to consolidate votes and some incumbents who were sure to face the axe on March 4 rode on the euphoria of these coalitions and their presidential candidates. But truth be told these honorable men and women are just rode these Jubilee, CORD and Amani trains to their destinations and once they got there, alighted without sparing a minute to know what happened to these political bandwagons. This is the typical opportunistic Kenyan politician!

Kenyans, who trek to and from Industrial are since used seeing to political rivals, share one thing; choppers.  These group of politicians come from the leafy Nairobi suburbs, are current or former holders of key positions in the Moi and Kibaki governments. They never instituted any change, yet they made all noise that they are reform friendly. These guys have deep and rich connections that maintain their wealth that no Kenyan ever asks how they acquired. They own huge chunks of land, while Kenyans lack a place to build their houses and are busy slitting each other’s throat as they fight over pieces of land to graze their livestock and put up houses. The few who get land around the capital, such as in Syokimau have been traumatized watching their hard-earned investments come down under the hail of bulldozers. These houses have been labeled illegal by some authorities hence the use of these mighty tractors to crush them.

Whenever they get health complications, our classy politicians travel to the US and other western countries for treatment. Their children never see the doors of public schools but go to private schools, both in Kenya and abroad. Public health facilities are in deplorable conditions, babies are stolen minutes after birth; nurses and doctors must go on strike to demand better pay, modern facilities and enough medication for their patients. Funds meant for the free primary education mysteriously disappear yet nobody claims responsibility.

Corruption reigns supreme in the government institutions and nobody is willing to fight it. Our police force is ill-equipped, poorly remunerated and when they are butchered on the trail of cattle-rustlers, nobody hears their cry or that of their crest-fallen families. At the backdrop of all these stark disparities between the rich political class and poor ordinary Kenyans, are promises to improve our public schools and public health facilities. Sadly, poor Kenyans rise up against their next-door Kenyans due to these coalitions. The society throws soberness to the wind and gets carried away by this political whirlwind.

Legislators extended the house sitting hours in order to immorally increase their salaries and allowances. Days later at public rallies, they vehemently denied being part of this evil-axis hell-bent on plundering the public coffers. The key concerns of Kenyans such as jobs, high cost of living, insecurity and provision of better healthcare feature prominently on the manifestos of our parties, but nobody ever talks about them once in power. This explains why these issues will forever hold us back, whether we have the ambitious Vision 2030 or not!

Politicians count their votes on the basis of their ethnic colossus that we have made so morally correct that vilifying them as negative ethnicity is politically unpalatable. Politics being the cruel game of numbers that it is, Kenyan politics know this all too well and all promises will be made, just to woo the numbers. Never mind that most of these pledges and manifestos started gathering dust in the shelves after March 4!  These will be rewritten in 2017 and subsequent elections.

This is the sad and vicious cycle of politics without principle that as Mahatma Gandhi said, are one of the seven deadly sins. In Kenya, we have and still pay dearly for this.

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