Brexit campaigns show bizarre similarity with Kenyan politics

The just-concluded UK referendum on whether to stay or leave the European Union bears an uncanny similarity between the British political class and the much-maligned Kenyan political establishment.

For one, the Exit campaigns were majorly founded on half-truths meant to scare the populace into opting out of the union.  This is similar to the scene in Kenya in 2005 when the country was put to a vote to determine the place of a suggested constitution.

At the time, the country was divided smack in the middle into two camps—those who were for a new constitution and those against. Former President Mwai Kibaki’s government was for the proposed constitution. The Opposition, that included current President Uhuru Kenyatta and seven of Kibaki’s cabinet ministers, were against the proposed set of laws, arguing that some issues were yet to be ironed out.

On the voting day, an estimated seven million people turned up to cast their ballot and the president’s side lost by over a million votes. On Friday, Prime Minister’s David Cameron ‘Remain’ team lost. In his first address to the nation, he tendered in a resignation for the country.

Cameron told his country that he would attempt to “steady the ship” over the coming weeks and months, but that it would be for the new prime minister to carry out negotiations with the EU and invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would give the UK two years to negotiate its withdrawal.

Government re-organised

“The British people have voted to leave the EU and their will must be respected,” said Cameron. “The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered.”

In contrast, barely two days after the draft constitution was rejected in a national referendum, President Kibaki sacked his entire cabinet.

“Following the results of the referendum, it has become necessary for me, as the President of the Republic, to re-organise my Government to make it more cohesive and better able to serve the people of Kenya,” Kibaki said in a terse statement broadcast on radio and television.

“Accordingly, in accordance with the powers conferred upon me under the Constitution of Kenya, I have directed that the offices of all ministers and all assistant ministers become vacant. Consequently, the occupants of the said offices cease to hold their respective offices with immediate effect,” he said.

Although Kibaki’s team lost, some individuals found their political voice in the loss. Just like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage who have been seen as alternative voices in their parties in the course of the referendum campaigns, a section of Kenya’s political class too rode the referendum wave into political re-invention.

Key among them was CORD leader Raila Odinga and his co-campaigners who used the momentum of the referendum win to form a political party that would eventually take on Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) in a bruising and violent election two years later. From the Yes and No referendum was born the Orange Democratic Movement, currently one of the biggest political parties in the country.

This re-invention in many occasions saw the partnership of strange bedfellows. For instance, the UK has seen popular Conservative politician Johnson join hands with Independence Party’s (UKIP) Farage.

The 2005 referendum saw President Kenyatta work hand in hand with Raila as well as with a host of other smaller political parties for the common purpose of galvanising the country to vote against the proposed law.

In spite of the fact that referendums may provide the chance for opposing politicians to unite behind a common purpose, they also provide opportunities to whip up emotions of the masses through heightened political rhetoric that evoke tribal or class emotions.

In the UK referendum, the vote was largely turned into an anti-immigration campaign by the Brexit group.

For instance, a key Brexit figure Michael Gove argued that a stay in the EU would lead to an influx of immigrants, jeopardising service provision to UK citizens.

High emotions

“Because we cannot control our borders — and because our deal sadly does nothing to change this fact, public services such as the National Health Service will face an unquantifiable strain as millions more become EU citizens,” he wrote in an article for The Times.

As a result, the voting turned emotional other than logical. And to a worrying extent, emotions ran high enough to result in the death of Member of Parliament Jo Cox.

Asked to give his name in court, Thomas Mair, the man facing trial over the death of the 41-year-old MP, said: “My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain”.

Mair was a subscriber to SA Patriot, a South African magazine that was published by the pro-apartheid group, the White Rhino Club.

The club describes the magazine’s editorial stance as being against “multi-cultural societies” and “expansionist Islam”. A blog post attributed to the group, dated January 2006, described Mair as “one of the earliest subscribers and supporters of SA Patriot.”

Kenya has had its fair share of half-truths and untruths spewed by politicians. During the campaign period for the 2005 referendum, at least nine people lost their lives at rallies organised by the “No” vote.

Two years later, the worst was to happen as political rhetoric drove the country to the brink of civil when at least 1,113 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands more were displaced. Proving that in politics, anywhere, civility only stands a chance in the absence of false political rhetoric.