Political parties don't serve our interests well

For the record, there are 15 independent candidates in Kenya's Senate and National Assembly. They survived the big political party waves and made it to Parliament on their own strategic campaigning.

Independent candidates, as the word denotes, are meant to be elected leaders not beholden to any godfather. They stand on a platform of self-determinism. They speak their minds. They represent the minds and interests of the electorate and the interest of the country.

Two years after the 2017 General Election, the space and role of an independent candidate, as we would have imagined, is quite dim. There would be very few voters who know or remember that they actually elected independent candidates to Parliament.

While we appreciate that political parties play a critical role in harnessing common interests among candidates in a bid to limit the number of parties, in a country like ours where there's hardly any political party ideology, one wonders whether it is really necessary to have a political party system in the first place. Nevertheless, if more civic education is pumped into these parties, perhaps they will start reasoning differently for the benefit of the electorate.

The history of our political parties is discouraging. Many are mere briefcase parties, tools for getting to power, taxpayer money suckers or just political safety nets. Ideally, independents are freed of political party bickering, manipulation and toeing positions that one may not necessarily believe in.

It seems in Kenya, independent candidates get swallowed by major political parties as soon as they are sworn into office. One would have expected at least two or three of the 15 independent candidates to stand out defending public interest in the face of alleged mega corruption practices in and out of Parliament.

There is so much going south in this country; poor disaster preparedness, poor response to locust invasion, sporadic ethnic fighting, poor medical services in public hospitals among others. Independents would, ideally, be the voice of the majority. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Looking back at the way political parties have corrupted the meaning and practice of democracy in Kenya through and through, I would incline myself to think outside the box. The president, the prime minister (should the current referendum debate come to that) and the governors should all be independent candidates. If we relieve them of the political party burden, they are likely to focus more on service delivery.

An independent presidential candidate, at least in the context of Kenya, will be less beholden to political party politics which, in essence, means rewarding party stalwarts for the period the president or governor is in power.

The reward-punishment approach to our political campaigns leads to extremist tendencies among political parties. It is either you are eating or you are salivating. And, those in power have no qualms reminding us that they are eating and the outsider should run themselves dry salivating if they so wish.

Besides, an independent presidential candidate and a governor will not be blackmailed to clannism and tribalism. Just like a head of a parastatal – where the leader has a level head – corruption in all its forms can be fought from a professional perspective. The focus of a leader is on the vision not on delivery of sideline promises.

Premium seats

In other words, an independent presidential candidate and governor have the leeway to focus on public interest. To support their agenda through legislative processes they have their cabinet that has to do the negotiations. More than anything else, they have the voters behind them, especially now that Kenyan voters know something about “impeachment”.

The main benefit of an independent presidential and gubernatorial candidature rests on rising above murky politics to invest energies on what matters most to the electorate. Being premium seats, the president and governor will be checked by the other arms of government, that is, the judiciary and legislature with less political party manipulations directly interfering with the functioning of the executive.

Moreover, we really need a local solution to our perennial election fears, chaos and violence. It will be in our interest to think broader in resolving outstanding electoral issues, including service delivery shortfalls.

I am persuaded that, with proper legal support, an independent presidential candidate and governor stand a better chance of serving the people than one surrounded by tribalists, political party vultures and dysfunctional groupings under a party.

Dr Mokua lectures on Media and Communication Studies