What must we do to stabilise our politics, get the economy moving?

A sectgion of youth supporting the Azimio la Umoja mass protests against the high cost of living engage police in running battles in Mathare 4A on March 27, 2023. [Collins Kweyu, Standard]

As we return to work and play after a welcome Easter break for rest, reflection and rejuvenation, even in these difficult times, Kenyans enjoyed the significant resource we have; our social capital as family and community. We tend to miss this in our obsessive focus on our politics and economy.

Let's start with politics. We went into Easter with both sides of our political divide holding hardline positions. The interesting part is these hardlines are neither contextualized (where are we coming from?) nor conceptualized (where are we going to?) in a way that begins a consensus on content (what is discussed) and process (how the discussion is organized, including whom). We will return to this, but if this brinkmanship is the way we are going, forget any real political reform.