Is democracy a curse or cure for modern states' quest for liberty?

IEBC employees sort out some of the Supreme Court petition defense documents on August 24, 2022. [Samson Wire, Standard] John Calvin, the great advocate of popular will in civil government, and in the Church, asserted nearly five centuries ago that rulers and magistrates should exercise their authority to further divine edicts that essentially promote the common good. The ideas of Calvin greatly influenced popular direct democracies such as Switzerland, where to this day, most State decisions are made through citizens voting in referenda. Writing in the The Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1537, Calvin eloquently argued for those in authority to adhere to the divine calling as a strong stimulus for doing good, for if they knew that "they are the vicegerents of God, it behoves them to watch with all care, diligence, and industry, that they may in themselves exhibit a kind of image of the Divine Providence, guardianship, goodness, benevolence, and justice." Many politicians, in Kenya and worldwide, are unfortunately far divorced as possible from the great ideals of the likes of Calvin. Modern politicians have petty aims such as grandeur, self-aggrandizement and stealing public funds to live in luxury as their charges wallow in poverty. The General Elections that were held in August did not give much hope that we may get better politicians, with a few exceptions. We have a bunch of thieves convicted in corrupt heists elected to office. Others are accused of murder, and many employed bribery and violence as tools for getting elected. The glimmer of hope is a dim light at the end of the tunnel held by a few diehard democrats that have been jailed and maimed for the liberty of Kenyans. A great part of the design of modern democracies in the West is linked to their history, traced back from classical times to the ascendancy of Christianity where authority was seen as divine duty. Modern democracies separated the Church and the State to prevent emergence of State religions that had dominated Europe and been used by sovereigns to oppress people. The pilgrims who escaped tyranny in European monarchies went on to found republics such as the United States, based on the idea of inalienable God-given rights for each individual to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. John Locke argued that "tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to," because such exercise is "not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage." He then asserted that people had a right to overthrow such tyranny when "they are persuaded in their consciences, that their laws, and with them their estates, liberties, and lives are in danger." These ideas animated the American Revolution against the tranny of the English monarch and were eloquently written into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The Kenyan fight for independence was equally an uprising against English tyranny, and the blood that was spilt by the revolutionary Mau Mau fighters watered the tree that provides the shed of liberty for the people, which has been unfortunately hacked by dictators. Latter-day traitors use corrupt subterfuge to take advantage of the democratic malfunction of our system that allows charlatans, thieves, and killers to run for office, with the sole purpose of self-enrichment and stifling the liberty of Kenyans. This weakness of our democracy has seen perpetrators of heinous crimes hold office and use it to prevent fair trials in courts of law, thus denying Kenyans the opportunity to prosper. The few virtuous leaders in Kenya are the die-hard second liberation freedom fighters that refuse to give up, and soldier on today giving Kenyans a glimmer of hope that one day, they shall achieve their aspirations for happiness, prosperity, equity, and justice. Kenya is not a democracy in a strict sense, despite the current Constitution in Chapter Two promising "a multi-party" State founded on "patriotism, national unity, devolution of power, rule of law, democracy, participation of the people, equity, social justice, protection of marginalised, and accountability." Kenyans vote hoping to build a democracy, but corrupt politicians use money, fraud, lies and outright election theft to ascend to power. The corrupt have captured the Kenyan state and use the electoral system to gain power to protect their ill-gotten wealth. Aristotle, wrote in The Politics in 320 BC that democracy is a state where "the free are rulers," being the majority, as opposed to oligarchy in which a few rich people rule. Of the various forms of democracy, Aristotle identified the supremacy of the law as the key ingredient that negates the ascendancy of demagogues who use the multitudes to rule outside the law, and to trample on the rights of others. When demagogues rise and disregard the rule of law, democracy is akin to monarchical tyranny, both being despotic rule "over the better citizens." Aristotle had refined earlier ideas of Plato who asserted in The Laws that the greatest danger to the state was "the inordinate love of wealth," which "absorbs the soul of a man," who will "do anything, right or wrong," for "the indulgence of his animal passions." Corrupt politicians in Kenya seek power to steal the resources of the people, which undermines the supremacy of the Constitution, and weakens the quest for democracy. Kenya is on the verge of being overrun by demagogues driven by greed for amassing wealth at the expense of the people. The elections that were recently held produced a few virtuous leaders, and plenty of charlatans, convicted criminals, and accused persons, who used fake documents, bribery, cheating and lies to ascend to power with the sole purpose of theft of state resources, and self-aggrandizement. There is hope that Kenyans are getting wiser, and the democracy shall ultimately mature into a state where the people hold politicians accountable, demand services commensurate with the taxes they pay, and accept nothing short of the prosperity that the present generation and posterity deserve. Tony Sisule is a policy analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland. These are his personal views.

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