Cash inflows into political parties’ accounts call for stringent checks

By Henry Munene

It was Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher or literary critic, who likened some forms of modern literary art and performances to the ‘feast of fools’ observed by some religions in medieval Europe.

Under these feasts, the normal rules of logic were obeyed mainly in the breach.

The line between master and servant became blurred with the labourers being allowed liberty to act any way they willed.

And nothing in modern Kenya captures the imagery of ‘feast of fools’ than the way we carry out election campaigns.

People paint their bodies, chant profanities and hurl epithets at opponents of their favourite candidates. In the villages, it becomes difficult to catch sleep as youths – packed like sardines in hired campaign vehicles – make a racket fuelled by nothing more than Sh200 notes dished out by politicians.

Thus, you will find unemployed graduates, who should ideally be interrogating the manifestoes of various candidates to see whether they can better their lives, hurling stones and insults at whoever has chosen to run against their benefactor.

Of course there has been an argument that we cannot blame these youths because they do it out of poverty.

But that argument rings hollow in a situation where, lately, even professionals lower their dignity in exchange for promises of plum positions once a politician has finished buying an election and romped into office.

And it is no longer an entertaining ritual; not after the chaos we saw in early 2008 when this madness led to the killing of more than 1,000 people and displacement of hundreds of thousands others who, to date, live in displacement camps in their own country half a decade after Independence. So, what should we do to stem the cyclical tide of drama that grips our country after every five years? One, we need to go round the country educating people on the need to vote with their conscience no matter how hungry they will be on the day of the next polls.

The youth need to be helped to see that Sh200, whether ‘rained’ down from a helicopter or handed out in a dark alley, is part of the reason we are ranked one of the poorest countries on earth, despite our natural endowments.

People need to be helped to see it is their civic duty to ensure every candidate’s election manifesto is rigorously interrogated and that only the best are voted into public office. That way, people with stolen cash will have no place in public service.

Even as we encourage vetting of candidates ahead of the next General Elections by the National Security Intelligent Service and other key agencies, we need to welcome with two hands a new law to control campaign spending in the next General Election.

This is important because it will stop drug dealers, cowboy contractors, rent seekers and other vermin from financing campaigns, after which they blackmail the Government they helped into office to be offered protection to continue poisoning the national economy and the minds of children with contraband and drugs.

Besides monitoring inflow of cash into political parties accounts, an effective campaign finance law would ensure politicians do not bribe voters with cheap alcohol to kick reason out the window when they really need to think hard on who is the best for elective office.

For it is the spectre of uncontrolled campaign spending that fuels the festival of fools that plays out every election year in Kenya.

The writer is a Revise Editor, the County Weekly