By Mwenda Njoka
If there is one thing this country will forever be grateful to President Kibaki over, then that one thing must be the expansion of freedom and democratic space under the new Constitution.
But ironically, this almost exponential growth of freedom and democratic space is the very same thing that now threatens to leave the Kibaki Presidency with a bloodied nose by the time he leaves office presumably in about three months.
Why so you ask? Because, let’s put it this way, if the new Constitution represents the flowering, fruitful and bountiful tree of fundamental freedoms and democracy, then the increasing threat posed by MRC and other like-minded gangs are the weeds flourishing in the garden of democracy fertilised by new-found freedoms and poorly-tended by the weakened security and political institutions.
What has weakened the security and political institutions? Well, power, like almost everything else in nature never completely disappears. It is just transferred either naturally or not so naturally from one wielder to another. In so doing, it changes form and nature.
With the promulgation of the new Constitution, traditional centres of power were vanquished and new centres took their place.
With dawn of the new Constitution, security and Intelligence communities as well as the political establishment were forced to cede significant amounts of raw power.
In the place of traditional wielders of power came the new kids on the block – a re-charged Judiciary, the vocal civil society, and other non-State actors. It is against this background that groups such as MRC have become reignited with new lease of life. This secessionist group – Mombasa Republican Council – has grown exponentially in recent times emboldened by newfound democratic space, thanks to the new Constitution. You will recall that MRC, whose status had been under the category of illegal or banned organisations, made itself a legitimate organisation courtesy of an official court ruling.
Armed with a court ruling that legitimised its existence, MRC felt buoyed up to push its secessionist and often violent agenda.
It is a classic irony of democracy that the MRC and related gangs are using the cover of freedom and democracy to deny the same to those that they perceive to be opposed to their way of thinking and living.
Information from the Intelligence Community indicates that MRC is a foster child of the Somali terror group Al Shabaab, which in turn is the stepchild of Al Qaeda.
With such a ‘distinguished’ parental lineage, it is not hard for peace loving Kenyans to find themselves at a loss when they see this kind of a group getting the go-ahead to operate as a legitimate organisation.
A similar political phenomenon has also been taking shape in the Arab world since the advent of the Arab Spring in December 2010.
The fall of dictatorial regimes of Colonel Muamar Gadaffi (Libya) and Hosni Mubarak (Egypt) opened up democratic space, albeit not of the usual kind, releasing forces that had hitherto operated beneath the surface and below the radar.
Once the genie was out of the bottle there was no way of putting it back and it has been out there causing havoc ever since. What is this genie? It comes in the shape and colour of radical Islamic fundamentalist groups taking advantage of newfound freedom and democratic space to, ironically, suppress the democratic rights of others. These radical fundamentalists have no qualms nor do they see the paradox in using the newly created democratic space to narrow the democratic space of those that are opposed to their worldview.
Left unchecked, such groups will drown all the voices of reason, level-headedness and balance because they (the radical fundamentalists) are more vocal, more daring and above all, often suicidal.
The situation becomes even more dire (and in urgent need of more out-of-the-box solutions) when one considers the fact that we are in the last days of a political transition year – that silly season when even the strongest of political leaders become lame ducks.
The writer is Managing Editor of The Standard On Sunday
