Some of the names we have returned in polls is a blight on our collective soul, conscience

The ending party primaries have shown us how easily a democracy could slide into mob rule and on to a kakistocracy. A kakistocracy is a government led by the worst elements in society. In ancient Greece they talked of mob rule as an ochlocracy. It was a vulgar mob — as mobs will usually be — imposing vulgar rulers upon society. Greek philosophers called them “mobile vulgus.” Apart from vulgarity, the mob was also fickle. It was inconsistent and could not be trusted to sustain anything that seemed good. It changed like the weather. It held nothing sacrosanct and did not believe in any one useful thing. The mob was with you today and gone the next day. It is such mobs that give birth to kakistocracies.

Even what appears to be a popular vote could easily give power to the worst elements in society. In the name of exercising their democratic right, vehement mobs will bypass good men and women and vote for goons. Kenyans today talk of “tyrannies of numbers.” It is assumed that numbers alone make democracies. Yet, when raw numbers are the only things that matter, it is no longer be a question of a tyranny of numbers. It is more of a tyranny of zombies. The side that has more zombies carries the day in every ideological competition.