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.

Every so often, Kenyans have shown that they are not averse to sliding into a kakistocracy. Yes, they may go to what look like democratic elections every five years. Yet sponsored rowdy mobs working on the power of sundry intoxicants mess up the meaning of the whole exercise. Worse is that in the process some hoodlum actually ascends to power.

Pushing the case

I have over the past few weeks traversed the country from the coast to the border in Busia and Malaba. I have been to central Kenya and to the Rift Valley. I have visited eastern Kenya. From there I have gone back to Nyanza and to Western. The story is the same. There are sundry mobs everywhere pushing the case for this politician or the other, without any clear reasons. But it has been mostly a question of money and ancestry.

I have witnessed wild mobs assaulting other people and setting property on fire as part of the ceremony of electing their leaders. In the end they deliver a leader anyway. This leader may be an individual of hugely questionable integrity, like some whom we have seen. Indeed, the primaries have produced some embarrassing and frightful characters as winners in parts of the country. They will tell you to eat your scruples. For, this fellow may be a hooligan yes, but she is also a popularly elected hooligan. There is a sense in which we claim ownership of such a hooligan to the extent that the borderline between hooliganism and heroism disappears. What observers from outside the moral community see as hooliganism insiders see as heroism. Hence a politician may use four letter words to offend public morality by insulting a journalist on live TV. As he arrogantly gambols away, the vulgar crowd sees pure heroism in him. Kakistocracy is home to stay.

Being a universe of uncivilised citizens, a kakistocracy has no advantages whatsoever. Everything about it is depressing and shambolic, except in the eyes of the political class and its mobs. The politicians will torment right thinking members of society with the melodrama of shambolic elections and call that democracy. A new mob may replace an old one, or the old mob may succeed itself. The mobsters will celebrate their victory and issue speeches and resolutions of the majority. However, nothing good can come out of the ochlocratic kakistocracy.

The hooliganism that we have witnessed during these primaries makes for an invaluable wake-up call to men and women of conscience. Our country is sliding through our fingers. We need to interrogate the essence of the periodic ritual that we call General Elections. Can this thing really work here? So we have a beautiful Constitution and wonderful election laws? But what good are laws when they cannot be obeyed or enforced? What is the worth of an election that is used to sanitise a thief? For, where civilised societies force thieves out of public office, in Kenya we use elections to give such persons a fresh lease of public life.

Sheer anarchy

Do we need to rethink our attitude towards Western universal suffrage? Do we need to begin the search for a new political paradigm? The character of the ending party primaries is a clear indication that we don’t know what we are doing. The sheer anarchy that has attended the process and some of the names we have returned is a blight on our collective soul and conscience.

We have looked like a nation of thugs voting in thugs. Where we should be draining the swamp of poor governance, we are flooding it. No decent society can place itself at the disposal of covens of ne’er-do-wells in the 21st Century. The professional class, in particular, has a big role to play here. It can no longer afford to stand by and look on as thugs place fellow thugs in power. The intelligentsia has a role to make this country work. If it abdicates it, it must prepare to watch as the country sinks beyond redemption.

The writer is a publishing editor, special consultant and advisor on public and media relations [email protected]