Parliament chronicles: Keeping up with the politicians reality show is finally here

When Waheshimwa's fought in the chambers.

You asked for us, we listened. Dagoretti South’s John Kiarie, KJ, should have introduced wahesh’s latest reality show. Kenyans have been itching to meet you not because they love you, but because they want to milk you dry before you disappear on them for the umpteenth time.

Pardon my manners. Yes, the wahesh have a new show called The Lawmaker. (Take us home, oh Lord. We have seen it all!) And yes, they used your taxes to make it.

The show premiered on Bunge’s YouTube channel on Friday. Being the actor he is, KJ, naturally, went first. Not that anyone doubts the acting skills of the rest of his colleagues. Every five years, they act like they care about us only to remove their masks.

What a name! The Lawmaker. Makes their job sound more sophisticated than it actually is. I mean, how hard can braying at the top of your lungs be? I would have gone with Keeping Up With The Wahesh, instead. It fits the brief perfectly: tell Kenyans what you do daily. (As though we don’t already know.)

But the name isn’t so bad. No one understands our laws better than MPs. Just ask the cops who got a lecture from Samuel Arama, the mhesh for Nakuru Town West, if you have any doubts. But I digress.

Besides good acting and having an appetite for public coffers, the new show also demands that one maintains one facial expression longer than a corpse. The characters, it seems, are only allowed to smile.

A screenshot of Kwale Woman Rep Zulekha Hassan with her baby in the chambers.

For one to qualify, they must possess ultra-white molars. KJ has the perfect set. No, as much as I would love to, I have never met his dentist. The molars, and his mouth’s entire posterior, couldn’t stay hidden given how broadly he smiled throughout the first episode.

Another skill is ability to plagiarise Barack Obama. KJ excels at it. He began with a generic conversation with some motorist, a conversation that screamed ‘stage-managed’! That was before he delivered Obama’s “I am the most unlikely blah blah blah” speech, only that he forgot to throw in a “Let’s face it” at the start.

The job also calls for one to be good at speaking endlessly. KJ did so for 11 minutes without pausing for a sip of water. His lips were desperate for water but stopping for a sip would show weakness. And who wants a weak MP?

Finally, of course, you must be economical with the truth. I’m not saying KJ lied, I just assumed that’s what MPs do. They wouldn’t be MPs if they couldn’t convince us that they are saints. Right?