Deal with ethnic political parties to end ethnicity

Since independence, the politics in Kenya have been pegged on ethnicity. The mobilization of voters especially is ethnically based. This makes it challenging to fulfill the vision of the founders of the nation who had one of their agenda as bringing to an end ethnicity, which was a divide and rule strategy used by the colonialists.

The wrangles indeed witnessed in the country after every election is due to the ethnic-based politics played by our leaders so that whenever the election results, especially the presidential results, are unsatisfying. Instead of mentioning the party involved, the opponents tend to blame the community, which has the majority within that party. Though the political class may not be much affected, it is witnessed in the actions of hatred portrayed by their supporters.

Fighting corruption is also faced with a similar challenge. Whenever a leader faces charges on corruption, he rushes to his community and makes claims that his community is being looked down upon, instead of facing the law as an individual and defend himself, which further escalates ethnicity and hatred.

It is good the Building Bridges Initiative may save us from this monster since one of the ideas being worked on under the initiative is how to do away with after election unrest brought by ethnicity. I would suggest that the team come up with a proposal on political parties formation, whereby there are well-outlined terms of forming political parties. To be precise, there should be two political parties: the ruling and the other as an opposition should be based on ideologies.

The terms should be explained to the citizens who would suggest the names of the political parties. This will enable Kenyans to follow ideas rather than being dragged by the already biased leaders.