Look beyond glitz and glamour of political aspirants

Parties and their aspirants are going round promising to transform Kenya and make it something akin to paradise.

In this fairy tale that they are weaving, there will be jobs galore for the youth, bank loans will be at their cheapest since Independence, hospitals will be choking with drugs, schools will have enough well paid and qualified teachers and funds will be available to improve the buildings.

Not done yet, they are also promising a supercharged development of infrastructure hitherto not witnessed across the Republic. Kenya will join the ranks of the newly industrialised countries and we will be net exporters rather than importers.

This Nirvana, according to them, begins the moment you cast your ballot in their favour on March 4, that is if you have registered to vote. Kenyans will live peacefully, ethnicity will be forgotten and hey presto! Corruption will suddenly vanish like fairy dust.

Not content with this, they are assuring you that once they are in office, they will ensure that police reform, which has dragged on for the last 10 years, will suddenly be completed and the National Police Service will be a well paid, properly housed outfit devoid of any hint of corruption and living up to their motto of “Service to All”.

Suddenly, politicians whose ethnic prejudice ensured the Grand Coalition Government was more a Grand Coalition of Comedies have realised they can work with anyone and that this thing called tribe only exists in the fertile imagination of those they brand guilty of “hate speech”.

So remarkable is the transformation that if one was a visitor with no knowledge of Kenya’s history, one would easily applaud the level of maturity, openness and genuine concern oozing from the mouths of these leaders and crafted by their behind-the-scenes public relations machinery.

Suddenly, whatever happened in 2008 when neighbour turned against neighbour is relegated to a “mistake” for which others should bear blame.

Voters must look beyond the fancy campaign speeches and gilt-edged manifesto launches and remember that they have heard all these promises before.

Not only that, but a majority of these aspirants were part and parcel of the Grand Coalition Government and therefore share the blame equally for its failures and successes.

They cannot suddenly put on angelic garb and claim to have the magic bullet to our problems.

It is a truism that people get the leaders they deserve. What you see in public is a mask.

 What Kenya has today are not the most ideal of candidates, but as voters the decision comes in less than four weeks.

Given such a narrow field in terms of vision, sorting out the chaff from the wheat will be a difficult decision, but one each individual voter must make on their own, and live with.