Elections: A costly 5-year mistake?

Asked what came to their minds when they heard the word Africa, Curtis Keim in Mistaking Africa, says his students came up with coup, poverty, ignorance, drought, famine, tragedy and tribalism.

Mr Keim, an American professor of history and political science, argues that Africa has mistakenly been thought of as a primitive place "full of trouble and wild animals and in need of help." This state of horror is occasionally supplanted by images of a wild safari, a warrior and a hut.

How true is this assumption? I sought to find out the other day. All around us are dark hints about crumbled beliefs, dashed hopes and monstrous cruelty. A few spots of hope and change are dimmed by the deep-rooted culture of political gangsterism compounded by bewildering mass ignorance.

On the whole, the people believe that Africa, and especially Kenya, is a tragic story of corruption, bad governance and a citizenry inured to the bad state of things. Yet despite that, it is engaged in a futile attempt to make the best out of a bad situation.

And even as the whistle blows to signal the start of the 2017 electoral cycle, there is already heightened activity across the country. There is simmering mass dejection. Many speak about the seismic change coming soon.

Apparently, across the country, a backlash against all elected leaders is brewing. And the reason for this ranges from the mundane like; not waving back at those who "employed them"; to claims of impropriety in the county and CDF kitties; to failing to secure jobs for jobless villagers.

In the short-term, this piles the misery on the leader to deliver and many of them get tempted to engage in malfeasance to keep everyone happy and satisfied. An expectant public, a greedy public leader makes a lethal cocktail.

Ideally, man makes mistakes like say, when euphoria sweeps leaders into leadership positions as happens often. Come to think of it; actually, the people elect their leaders for the wrong reasons.

Some of us will make promises we cannot and will never deliver.

In Kenya unfortunately, the perilous rod-and-reward politics is manifest in a population that has unwittingly become an instrument of bad leadership. They often bark up the wrong tree and end up getting drowned in a sea of disillusionment.

No doubt, so much is done in the name of politics. After all it is a ladder to wealth, a means to an end. In a functioning democracy, elections should provide the turning point to any country. It is where a good leader gets another chance to serve the electorate.

It is also where the ne'er-do-wells are slung out.

In Kenya, where tribalism (clannism if you like), violence and disappointment stand out, the electorate often get unlucky. In circumstances where greed, deceit and violence are the hallmarks of a country's politics, it becomes difficult to separate the foulness of former leaders and the grand intentions of the new ones.

The electorate tempt fate and gamble (with their lives) in every five-year electoral cycle. Some win big, some lose big. To the chagrin of the people, an elected MP can go AWOL after he is put in office, leaving many asking why they even thought of him.

Others, the lucky ones, will get the leaders they really deserve; a leader who will channel their resources and energy to serve the common good. All of us, including me, aspire to be that leader.

By any standards, I might ask; is there a moral case for yanking out an elected leader merely for not waving at you as you went to grind your maize at the posho mill, or not attending a harambee you didn't even invite him or not employing your cousin?

As we head into 2017, resentment and cynicism are palpable and the drumbeats of change are growing louder. But you may ask, what change?

One of the hard lessons about elections in Kenya and much of the developing world is that despite regular elections, wretched injustices and misdeeds continue to be perpetuated by a corrupt and often brutal and self-preserving elite.

What is disheartening though is that the people have refused to be masters of their destiny, instead electing to be passive victims of their actions by accepting to be active participants in populist politics, condoning and benefiting from tribalism, voter bribery and theft.

They have accepted to be used to subvert democracy by intimidating those who hold divergent views and don't support their candidate.

Paul Collier in Wars, Guns and Votes, Democracy in Dangerous Places says; "On their own, unless held in the context of a functioning democracy, elections can retard rather than advance a country's progress." I agree with him. We have a chance to render that postulation; false.