Democracy doesn’t come easy — but the effort is worth it

By Macharia Murigi

The National Alliance (TNA) is a new and young Party. In fact it’s an unashamedly new party and an unashamedly young party. One only has to look at the extraordinarily youthful chairman Johnson Sakaja to see what a young party it is.

Visit their campaign headquarters and you will be amazed by what young people they are – and crucially for Kenya, what a mixture. Male and female and from all parts of Kenya, their youthfulness is something they wear as a badge of honour.

But as with any child or adolescent, there are bound to be growing pains; and indeed the odd family squabble. That is to be expected. This week’s growing pains have manifest themselves in the problems of Party nomination. Not just in terms of the rivalries and infighting which have bedevilled all the major Parties, but in terms of the organisational problems which have underpinned them.

But let’s be clear, these problems have hit just about every one of Kenya’s main Parties. The aspirants are playing for high stakes. Political careers will turn on the outcome of some of these contests.

It is hardly surprising that tempers get frayed, and sadly, much worse than that. There has been street violence, even it is reported, a death. And the problem has criss-crossed the political spectrum. Even senior ODM figures described her party’s nomination process as chaotic. Let noone fall into the trap of trying to score party political points on this issue.

But what is ultimately much more interesting is to see how the Parties have responded to this week’s problems. And the fledgling TNA will doubtless attract some flak, including from within their own ranks, about their decision to extend their contest over into Friday, and to change polling hours to accommodate those denied the chance to cast a vote on Thursday as a result of an administrative or organisational hiccups. But, inconvenient as it may be, they were right.

New generation

The TNA have made no secret of their determination to be the “change” Party. Their ambition to see a new kind of politics in Kenya is deep-seated and genuine, particularly amongst their youthful ranks who have been completely turned off by the “smoke-filled room” and “dirty deal making” politics of the old brigade. Their leader Uhuru Kenyatta may be the scion of Kenya’s most famous family, but his determination to lead a new generation of Kenya politician is genuine.

So when things started to go awry last Thursday, his Party were faced with a choice. Do you brush the problem under the carpet and force through a probably pre-ordained result within roughly the agreed timescale?

That’s the easy route. Or, do you take the more difficult one and extend the polling process to ensure everyone who is eligible and wishes to, gets a chance to vote? That’s called democracy.

Kenya will this year celebrate her national Jubilee. The 50th anniversary of an independence that many fought, and indeed died, for.

The alliance between TNA and URP cleverly grabbed the Jubilee name as their electoral title. The political marriage of the Kikuyu and Kalenjin holds out hope for non-tribal politics in future. And TNA’s decision to put the difficult passage of democracy before the easy way out bodes well for the next 50 years.

Kenyans are tired of the old way of doing politics. It is a sad indictment that the first fatality of this year’s election was while fighting over bribe money distributed by one of the aspirants.

That sort of politics has to stop.

The eyes of the world will be on Kenya over the next few weeks. We cannot escape the facts of 2007 and 2008. That is another reason why our politicians have to be seen to get it right. Democracy has to be seen to prevail. As the old saying goes,” justice mustn’t just be done; it must be seen to be done”. And TNA are ensuring democracy prevails.

Political marriage

And when the world focuses on this small hiccup in Kenya’s electoral development, let them not pretend that everything in their systems is correct. Be it the hanging chads of Florida for Mr Bush, the queues turned away from polling stations in Britain 2010, or the never ending financial chicanery that accompanies elections in France. So no lectures please from NGOs and diplomats.

Breaking a damaged mould and changing an imperfect history is never easy, but the desire to do so should be applauded. As another adage has it: “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”.

Delaying the outcome of TNA selection process by 24 hours may be inconvenient for newspaper editor and apparatchik alike, but if at the end it secures the will of the people it’s worth it.

TNA may not get everything right in the future, but their call on this one was absolutely correct.

The writer is a media relations manager with the Uhuru Kenyatta presidential campaign.