allAfrica.com: Kenya: What Country Should Learn From Brown's Blunders (Page 1 of 1)

In a country as administratively centralised as the UK, local council elections are usually a political sideshow. Not so for this year's May Day elections which effectively became the mock primaries for the 2010 national elections for the two main party leaders, Labour's Gordon Brown and the Conservative's David Cameron.

The May Day elections have been fiercely fought around the country with Labour suffering humiliating defeats. Overall, the Tories built a 20-point lead over Labour. The London mayoralty, iconic in many ways was also won by the Conservatives with Boris Johnson's victory over Ken Livingstone sealing Labour's annihilation.

The May Day local elections and the manner in which they have defined the national agenda over the last couple of days in England point to their added import in shaping national politics. Indeed, it appears that at a time when voters feel increasingly alienated from the decision making processes at the national level, they can easily send clear warning signs to national politicians through the local vote.

Labour supporters have over the years felt their party was moving away from its traditional working class constituencies. Its defeat in the local elections could be explained as much on this disconnect and thus as a protest vote against the party, but also as a sign that the Tories are making in-roads with the working classes.

Like Major, Brown seems to have forgotten that a party stands on quicksand if it fails to retain the loyalty of its traditional support base. For Cameron, the Conservative white-wash is likely to install him as a frontrunner come the next elections. However, the party's failure to make in-roads in the North of the country will undoubtedly raise doubts over Cameron's preparedness to lead the country.

Some are already beginning to explain the party's performance more on Labour fatigue rather than a shift of support to the Conservatives. Cameron has come out to emphasise that this was not merely a protest vote, indeed an indication that it may very well be the case.

The two leaders are different. Brown, the consummate economist has found the political train a terribly rough ride since succeeding Tony Blair. He has consistently failed to show neither mettle nor charm during his short reign, playing into Cameron's strengths. A performing economy has always been the PM's only political weapon.

But as the world goes through an economic downturn, Brown's weapon has effectively been negated. Food and fuel prices are shooting through the roof in England.

Meanwhile, the housing market is tumbling with house prices falling while mortgages are increasingly becoming unaffordable to first time buyers. The collapse of the bank Northern Rock and the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US have all worsened the housing market in the UK.

Even though fate has played its part, Brown has also been his own worst enemy. Obstinate but oblivious of the fact, he has made several political miscalculations forcing U-turns on a number of policies which have exposed his brittle authority.

His recent admission which was effectively a U-turn on the effects of the abolition of the 10p tax ignited a backbench rebellion against him and most likely a voter backlash during the local elections.

He is now facing another monumental vote as he attempts to push to the House of Commons, a proposal to increase the detention of terror suspects to 42 days. Under Brown, Labour has moved away from its traditional political roots.

While under Blair the party still seemed capable of charming the working classes, Brown has been bullied by a powerful tabloid media and a cunning Cameron to move right.

For this reason, the country now has a voting block cut loose from the party and effectively forced to protest against that alienation. When the influx of Eastern Europeans into England became a political hot potato, Brown swallowed the bait, talked about creating British jobs for British people perhaps imagining that not many people were aware that this was against EU regulations.

Recently on the popular Today programme, he manufactured numbers about the number of children he had taken out of poverty.

When the withdrawal of troops from Iraq became a headline agenda, Brown talked about troop withdrawals quoting numbers that were later exposed to have been deliberately fudged.

To save his career and party, Brown has to find out where the rain began to beat him. To do so, there's need to publicly acknowledge past mistakes and to reconnect with the masses, a skill that former Etonian Cameron seems to do with enviable ease.

But there are lessons here for Kenya's political class. Against the background of the controversial presidential elections and the subsequent cabinet fiasco, there are indications that the disconnect between our political class and the masses, never ruptured during the elections, will no doubt come to boil.

Indeed, the warning signs are slowly emerging. During the recent Labour Day celebrations, President Mwai Kibaki faced the ignominy of a crowd walking out on him when he claimed that economic conditions could not allow for the pay rise that the workers were asking for.

He might be right. But then again, when Kenyans see a Cabinet Bill that runs into hundreds of millions of shillings all in the name of political expediency, to expect them to add up the sums at a time when such a Cabinet seems to make a mockery of the global economic slowdown, would be to expect too much.

Yet, this may well be a pre-cursor to more turbulent times. Like Brown, fate may very well conspire against the current government. A number of by-elections are on the cards. They may very well be the harbinger for what may await the principals in the coming months. In politics, such warnings must be taken seriously.

Dr. Ogola teaches at the University of Central Lancashire.

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