Post by Onyango Oloo on Aug 17, 2017 22:29:54 GMT 3
A Statement from the Kenyan Communist Party
Police executions of unarmed civilians. Open, blatant theft via technology. Winners struggling to be handed certificates proving what they already knew. A referee called the IEBC compromised when s/he is supposed to be officiating a crucial match.
These are some of the snapshots of the just concluded macabre parade dubbed the elections of 2017.
Voters-both those coming out for the first time and those who have been through this rigmarole before-wondering whether it was worth waking up at four o’clock in the morning and lining up for hours to cast ballots in what eventually turned out to be a massive waste of time, energy, money and resources.
The Jubilee cockerel is crowing triumphant that they are back in power to continue their looting, their theft, their arrogance and open disdain for the majority of Kenyans. The NASA troops are disgusted because they did not manage to make their trip to Canaan.
As we wake up to the blood soaked post-election reality that is soaking Mombasa, Kisumu, Nairobi, Garissa and other parts of the country we must sober up and face some uncomfortable truths.
NASA has called the Presidential results announced by the IEBC “computer generated” expressed its determination to take up the case to the Supreme Court.
And while the country is still reeling from the bloody after effects of the elections Kenyans were confronted with the terrorist shock of goons from the NGO Board and other state authorities launching a vicious physical and verbal attack on two of Kenya’s most respected civil society institutions-the Kenya Human Rights Commission and AfriCOG.
Whether one calls it a coup, theft or whatever, Jubilee has installed itself as the “government” using the fig leaf of stolen elections.
First of all, Uhuru and Ruto are still at the helm of power.
Jubilee has painted the nation red-literally and figuratively both in terms of party colour and the amount of blood soaked in NASA strongholds.
They now truly have a tyranny of numbers when it comes to the governors, senators, MPs and MCAs that will give them a license to misgovern through odious policies not bothering to check whether there will be checks and balances to curtail them.
NASA and other Kenyan political parties are reaping from their collective delusion that things can change through elections that are deemed “free and fair”. If one agrees to the charade of money engineered, tribal and personality based “electioneering” then one should be prepared for the kind of elitist power games employed by the ruling elites of Kenya who grab power not for good governance and social justice but rather to accumulate and protect swag acquired through thefts misnamed as “tenderpreneurship” or baptized as “corruption”.
We Kenyans are in our fifth decade of undergoing the turmoil, turbulence, travails and contradictions of neo-colonialism and imperialism and yet we are still to learn that in the world today dominated as it is by American style election politics, the ordinary wananchi will always end up holding the wrong end of the stick.
After we have wiped away the tears and mopped our brows of the police bullets we must confront harsh reality squarely.
Yes Uhuru, Ruto and Jubilee used unfair and underhanded methods to sneak back to power but Kenyan progressives must take a look within NASA and interrogate the root of our problems.
Critical among the shortcomings is the over reliance on elite pacting. By which we refer to the phenomenon of a few mainstream politicians bandying together and forging a pact and hoping thereby that they will ascend to political power. No attempt is made to truly engage organically with the ordinary workers, peasants, the wananchi. And making them the motive force for radical change. Since the 1960s we have not had a vibrant and independent trade union movement to speak of. Women, to the extent that they are organized are coalesced into the NGO sector where they often compete for foreign funding based on infinitesimal differences and nuances. As for the student movement, if we are to take the universities, colleges and other tertiary institutions as illustrations tend to replicate what goes on within the mainstream political parties with money and goons controlling the shots. Large sections of the countryside remain unorganized. The scourge of unemployment and the curse of tribalism make it even more difficult to mobilize Kenyans on a national scale.
On a related scale to elite pacting is the obsession with “coalition politics”. In theory it makes absolute sense for different partners and political parties to come together to come up with the necessary numbers to form a government. But this must be principled and not based on personalities. This is a far cry from what happened recently with NASA in Kenya. Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi, Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Isaac Ruto one uniting bond is that at one point they had prominent roles either in KANU or the government. Given the ideology bereft Kenyan parties and the emphasis on personalities, tribe and region.
Communists counter pose what they refer to as the United Front strategy-a Marxist-Leninist tried and tested mechanism used since the beginning of the 20th Century to bland and unprincipled coalitions to achieve political power. In the united front the players have different and definite ideologies and political positions. Further, those who are part of the front can take each other when they need to. Also mobilization and recruitment of ordinary working people remains an ongoing task.
One of the things that NASA can do in the current dispensation is to retreat and focus on the few counties they control-in Mombasa, Kisumu, Siaya, Homa Bay, Migori, Kilfi, Taita Taveta, Turkana, Busia, Kakamega, Vihiga, Kisii, Bungoma and Kitui. Over the next five years, with innovative ideas they can showcase sterling examples of good governance, anti-corruption and democracy-ideals which going by the prevailing situations in a context of devolved and decentralized regional corruption is a rather tall order and more an aspiration and goal to achieve in the future.
The other thing is to devise a legislative and legal agenda of getting reforms to initiate a parliamentary system and a move away from the destructive winner takes all first to the post system towards a more democratic method of electing representatives such as the one in place in countries like South Africa.
These are some initial thoughts.
We shall elaborate on these and other thoughts in the near future.