17 February 2008
editorial
Nairobi — Mayoral elections are slated for a week from tomorrow. They come amidst a background of serious challenges facing urban centres across the country. Some of these challenges result from the post- election violence, while others are rooted in decades of ineffective, incompetent and lackadaisical management of civic institutions.
In the past, civic bodies have been captained by individuals whose only aspiration to leadership is motivated by the money they can either loot straight from from their respective treasuries or obtain through myriad scams that involve creating networks of corruption that run through the entire tendering process. In the end, taxpayers continue suffering from a lack of services for which they pay anyway through numerous and often punitive levies.
Mayors and councillors have occasionally distinguished themselves as people with a propensity for solving their differences using their fists rather than their brains. Such behaviour has been captured number of times on camera, revealing a leadership characterised by a singular lack of decorum.
THIS HAS IN TURN LED TO A SITUAtion where, in the eyes of the public, civic leadership is viewed as an occupation for the unschooled.
This would probably explain why few professionals - men or women - who have served in other organisations with distinction are interested in vying for civic seats. But this should not be the case. In other parts of the world, respected civic officials serve with distinction in equally respected institutions.
As we look to the mayoral elections, there is little to inspire confidence that municipal councils are going to get the best brains from among the elected councillors. As in the past, the person elected mayor will either have the money to bribe a majority of the councillors or will backed by powerful forces with the funds to buy the office for him. Even now we are being treated to the travesty of councillors being sequestered in unidentified but exclusive hotels from where they will emerge to cast their votes on February 25.
The unfortunate upshot is that they will not be voting in the best interest of those who elected them but rather in that of their puppet masters whose narrow interests they will be serving.
CONSEQUENTLY, THIS WORKS against the election of a mayor who seeks to serve residents under his-or her-jurisdiction because first and foremost he-she-will be in thrall to the shadowy forces that put him in office.
In the jostling for position and the attendant influence-peddling, it is easy for would-be civic leaders to forget that their constituents elected them councillors because they have a good number of expectations, but bare-knuckled jostling for positions is not one of them.
Urban dwellers across the country are faced with countless challenges, and their fate will be squarely in the hands of those people elected to lead the country's city councils. In Mombasa, for instance, tourism, the mainstay of the coastal town, is on its knees because of the post-election violence.
The situation calls for a mayor who is able and willing to quickly marshall his troops to come up with effective policies and means to restore Mombasa to its position as the hub of and magnet for Kenya's coastal tourism industry upon which thousands residents depend for their livelihoods.
Nakuru, Kisumu and Eldoret, too, require leadership that focuses on reconstruction and rapid resumption of economic activities.
And it is also probably time to take a closer look at the section of the constitution that denies citizens the opportunity to directly elect their mayors Direct elections would, hopefully, result in a leadership that is more accountable to the people.
Leaving such a key office to the greed, whims and twisted sensibilities of a band of councillors amounts to seriously compromising the fundamentals of democracy.
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