Party Shenanigans - Not Yet Democracy!

The recent party elections held by different political parties in a bid to comply with new regulations once again proved that as a country we are still a long way from Democracy. All the major parties basically "staged the elections" and none of the current party leaders deserve to claim that they were elected. The party delegates merely met to rubber stamp board room decisions. What is even frightening is that parties went as far as creating positions to accommodate certain personalities. Nowhere was this so blatant as in ODM where a position of second deputy party leader had to be created to accommodate William Ruto as the party feared the consequences of Ruto and Mudavadi facing each other. In another party, positions for eight vice chairs were created!! While it is laughfable the way our politicians fear to face each other in elections, what is of more concern to be is the fact that doors are effectively shut on new comers or new blood.

While the law will be making it difficult to have anybody come up with a party just for the sake of it, the mainstream parties are effectively being locked up through board-room maneuovers. This might mean that even having some fringe parties to run on with the hope of upsetting the applecart will be more difficult. And with mainstream parties under lock and key of the establishment, it will be a long time before any meaningful democracy is seen in our political space. I see a continuation where the PNU-ODM-ODMK dictatorship is further going to be entrenched as the political space closes up, more so with the continued attempts to frighten the media through legislation. Given that this axis of evil shares the same values, that is to further entrench and enrich the political and big business class at the expense of wananchi, this really is frightening.

It is time that Kenyans started to identify a political movement that can be shaped and controlled by wananchi, that whose leadership can be a reflection of the people's voice and not crafted to satisfy the bloated egos of some big shot politicians. And how can we do this. I don't have an exact answer at the moment but one of the first steps can be to identify a fringe party and take it over...just musing