(Published in l'express on Monday 22 August 2022)
Ethnic/identity politics:
The recent elections in Kenya were held amid economic difficulty, a cost-of-living crisis and soaring unemployment rates that have left many Kenyan households struggling. The Covid pandemic, the Ukraine crisis and global inflation have been squeezing public finances, business opportunities and living standards. But the domestic impact of these pressures on ordinary Kenyans did not play a major part into how people vote !
Some 50 plus years after achieving independence from Britain, Kenyan politics continue to be dominated by ethnic politics. Political power and opposition have revolved around ethnic lines, with alliances built with other communities to bolster ‘the tyranny of numbers’.
And here , is it different after 54 years of independence ? Our traditional mainstream parties and the extra-parliamentary parties( with few exceptions like ReA and Lalit and some others), who want to win us over with some pretence of national renewal ,are still stuck up with identity/communal politics. It is their identity politics that have allowed them to hold on to power; this culture of defending ‘our communal kingpins’ even if they are implicated in corruption, cronyism, illegal transactions… – will remain our biggest undoing.
The tragic game of musical chairs:
Kenyatta had backed Odinga after falling out with Ruto. Odinga and Kenyatta come from two of Kenya’s wealthiest and influential families. And Ruto was Kenyatta’s former deputy President. In 2018, an informal “handshake” agreement between Kenyatta and Odinga put an end to their long rivalry , paving the way for the two rivals’ political—and now electoral—cooperation. They jointly touted the Building Bridges Initiative, a series of proposed constitutional reforms framed as an attempt to prevent future electoral conflict. Critics, on the other hand, viewed the move as a transparent effort to expand the country’s executive branch by creating new political positions. In May 2021, Kenya’s High Court declared the initiative unconstitutional, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in March 2022.
In what is considered as one of the most dynamic democracies in Africa, Kenyans have grown tired of all the byzantine alliances they've been seeing among the elite. The Kenyans are mere bystanders tired of watching the elite playing their own game.
And we , Mauritians, are we not tired of them ? We had our version of the handshake agreement with the grand “partage du pouvoir” agreement to push through constitutional changes giving greater power to the ceremonial role of the president. Their marriages of convenience tend to fragment once they have served their electoral purpose. They have not learned anything. They continue to play their political game of musical chairs -that’s their priority now, positioning for PM, Vice-PM, President, MoF…rather than building consensus on the sweeping political and economic changes that country needs in the present trying circumstances.
The populist tenor :
Ruto has built his career as a businessman; he travels frequently in helicopters and owns several properties, including a mansion, a luxury hotel and a massive chicken plant; he had presented himself as a hustler among a self-serving political elite dominated by rich and powerful family dynasties, aiming for the country’s highest office from his humble beginnings selling chickens by the roadside. But Ruto who has been deputy president for almost a decade, is also part of that elite. He promised a “bottom-up” economic model geared toward developing small business and employment.
This is how they fooled us and will continue to do so; they used to sell “gateaux-piments,” they told us; they were one of ours, they have started from the very bottom and has kept rising up, so it makes us hopeful that they will empower Mauritians at the bottom.
And in their electoral manifestos, like Kenya’s Ruto, they talked about the democratisation of the economy; But their democratisation enriched only cronies and some specific conglomerates through allocations of licenses, land, contracts and special deals.
And regime after regime, every other day, the local press was fraught with “allegations” of the nexus between politicians, business groups and cronies.
How could we be so stupid ? Our Kenyan friends have already realised that the political elite will always dance to the tune of their financiers -the economic elite ! Do you find any of them questioning the economic system ? Their programme of reform is limited to minor political and constitutional changes and moves. Is that what we voters are bargaining for, after 54 years of more of the same ? Some mere touches here and there ! The freedom of information has become the topical issue now !
Can we expect them to deliver “du vrai changement” which should be above all, a call for a new economic paradigm that will dramatically change the socio-economic fibre of Mauritius- and especially the ones that will attend to the interest of "the many, not the few", for a rising economic tide that could lift all boats instead of polarising the country between few haves and many have-nots.
The trust-deficit :
In Kenya, many of the country’s institutions have lost their credibility particularly the country’s electoral institutions, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which do not have the capabilities and credibility to manage a potentially close election and prevent the irregularities that have tainted the previous two election cycles
The electoral commission’s chair, Wafula Chebukati, said Ruto narrowly defeated Odinga in the Aug. 9 vote. But just before his announcement, four of the seven commissioners held a separate news conference saying the “opaque nature” of the process prevented them from accepting the decision.
It is alleged that the four commissioners criticising the vote count as opaque were appointed by the outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018 and their intervention smacks of political interference from the Raila Odinga camp.
Kenya has had a troubled electoral history has also lowered public faith in the electoral commission’s ability to run a credible poll. Results have been contested over the last three election cycles, with poll discrepancies in 2017 leading to a repeat election.
Weakly institutionalized and exclusionary elite coalitions, political interference in state institutions, and the failure of electoral politics to deliver better governance and political accountability do not paint a sobering picture for Kenyan democracy.
We understand now why Kenya is among the African nations on the brink of an economic crisis, according to a report released by Moody’s Investors Service. A collapsing currency and depleted foreign exchange remain a major concern. The quantity of debt owed compared to reserves and the fiscal difficulties Kenya is facing in managing debt loads make it vulnerable.
Are we not also going the Sri-Lanka,Kenyan,Pakistan,Nepal.... ways ?
Our trust in this government and most of the institutions that frame our society, captured by the cronies for their own profits, are being eroded. Instead of well-functioning, trustworthy and independent institutions adhering to the rule of law and more of social justice, we see a prevalence of hollowed institutions and state capture. We, Mauritians , have lost trust in our institutions, trust in our electoral system, trust in our governance, the rule of law and economic management , among others…
When social trust is lost in public institutions, especially the significant trust deficit in our electoral bodies , a failure that raises red flags about this regime’s commitment to ensuring a smooth election process, it is time to start worrying !
Disenchantment among young voters :
Voter turnout in Kenya has been dismal, especially among the 18- to 35-year-olds who make up 75% of the country’s population. They do not that see elections as a pathway to change.
“This has made Kenyans much more indifferent, much less inflamed, much more likely to see that the elite are basically just playing their own game ”. There is a large constituency of young people that have refused to be dragged into ethnic politics that defines Kenyan politics. They now have an understanding that ethnic identity can be used politically in very violent and negative ways, so a number of people are going back to their ethnic identity as a cultural identity, but not a political one.
We are likely to have such voter disenchantment here- a way of showing their contempt for a system that favors the elite and is overwhelmingly partisan; they believe that our politicians care more about the elite than serving the interests of people like them; they have come to realise that whichever way it goes, they are still on their own.
And our youth sound mostly disillusioned by the choices before them, and by joblessness and the skyrocketing drug abuse that have hit all levels of our society especially hard.
But many have come to view our so-called democracy as so much blah-blah-blah in the face of a system that remains deeply marred by identity politics , corruption, cronyism and filled with politicians who are as self-interested as ever.
The younger generation sounds disheartened over the shape of our politics and the parties’ stranglehold on the ballots, limiting voter choices to a privileged few- still communal-based, evident in the their choice of running mates. “It’s an illusion of choice and we do not see them as an emblem of change.The ruling class have their own interests, they are not going to manufacture consent from us.”
Many of our voters, though they have lot of respect for the old guards whose long political careers have solidified their influence across the country, but which have also worked against them among voters, are critical of their record and see them as likely to maintain the status quo.
To gain their support, they expect our politicians to hinge their campaigns on the pressing economic issues facing the country, prompting a shift away from the country’s ethnic and personality-driven politics towards issue-based campaigns and towards building stronger and more politically aware communities that can push for change. “The solution lies in mass political power.”
For many of them, the current political situation calls for radical change , not the brinkmanship that we have been witnessing from the traditional parties and some of the extra-parliamentary ones. The true discourse is the needed changes and reforms to our present economic model of development and the accompanying political system.
