IEBC’s high nomination fees will make political participation costly

By Charity Ngilu

Kenya’s well being now and in the future depends on the good health of our democracy.

A healthy democracy will guarantee us good leaders and good governance, whose automatic fruits include greater success in the war against ignorance, poverty, and disease.

But true democracy entails ownership of the process by the entire population. This will only be gotten through ensuring inclusiveness at all stages; from participation in political parties, movements, and pressure groups to equality in voting and competition.

In other words, our electoral process should be one of the major guarantors of equality and national integration between the socio-economic classes, races, tribes, gender, and age groups.

It’s therefore mandatory to all players in Kenya’s democratic process to promote the ingredients of unity and equality during the choosing of our leadership at all levels through elections. They must always enforce electoral and democratic rights of all Kenyans at every turn.

When last week the independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) came up with radical proposals to charge hefty nomination fees for candidates at all categories during the General Election, my heart sunk.

I felt devastated on behalf of Kenyan women and youth. It was a brutal betrayal. That single blunder is enough evidence IEBC is an institution that is in urgent need of civic education about political and socio-economic common sense.

You do not need rocket science to know that more than 99 per cent of Kenyan women and youth cannot afford those proposed nomination charges of Sh1 million (presidential candidates), Sh500, 000 (Senate, gubernatorial and women representative candidates), Sh250, 000 (National Assembly candidates), and Sh50, 000 for County Assembly candidates.

The few with some little resources have more burning priorities, including health care and nutrition for the children, education needs, communication, and transport among others.

Now the import of what IEBC chairman Isaack Hassan and his team have proposed is that Kenyan women and youth should divert the scanty resources at their disposal to pay IEBC fees to vie for seats. That means willing candidates should become callous and starve their children and cannibalise their families’ well being to afford participation in the election. Others could steal or seek sponsorship from well wishers.

IEBC should also be reminded that like women folk, majority of the youth live from hand to mouth and more than 70 per cent are jobless.

Others search for jobs for long. Yet among them are talented leaders and political players.

When therefore you make political participation expensive to these vulnerable Kenyans, it easily gets categorised as a luxury. But is participation in democracy a luxury?

It is every Kenyan’s patriotic duty to participate in the democratic process energetically to ensure good leadership. This, therefore means we must do everything to allow participate in governance processes. At worst, we should work out appropriate affirmative action to ensure it happens.

Hence, IEBC cannot pretend to be accommodating whereas behaving like up-market dukawallas who fix high prices for their commodities without caring about unequal purchasing power of some of customers.

The commission needs to have provisions for every cadre of its clients to accommodate all or else peg every financial requirement at the convenience of the most disadvantaged. That will help cater for the moneyed and the lowly.

Kenya’s political history is full of good leaders who have served as civic leaders, MPs, and ministers yet they were not wealthy.

IEBC should be told loudly any provision that denies a person or a section of Kenyans their right to fully participate in the electoral process is unconstitutional and must be discarded. No other provisions supersede the Constitution.

I hope the commission, which is full of qualified legal practitioners, knows the Constitution underlines the right for all qualified Kenyans to vie for any seats and that poverty is not among the legal provisions to disqualify anyone save for one who has been confirmed bankrupt by a court of law.

Could it be that IEBC is revenging on Kenyans in this way out of anger after Parliament scaled down its astronomical budget proposals recently? Could they be using these ill advised, punitive election nomination charges as a way of recovering what they lost when MPs slashed their budget to less than Sh25 billion down from the Sh41.4 billion they had requested?

The commission shouldn’t ape political parties, which are charging high nomination fees because joining the parties is voluntary. Besides, the law provides for independent candidates.

Full democracy founded on universal participation of the entire citizenry is Kenya’s insurance for real sovereignty and prosperity.

The writer is Water minister and Narc party leader