Okiya Omtatah Okoiti
23 June 2008
opinion
Nairobi — TO PREVENT POLITICALLY-instigated ethnic conflict, we must change our electoral system.
The battle for ethnic supremacy pitting the Maasai against the Kipsigis during the recent Kilgoris by-election clearly exposed the main electoral flaw that has caused violent ethnic conflict in Kenyan multiparty elections since 1992.
Earlier, the same flaw was exposed in a more civilised manner when the Ilchamus, a minority indigenous community in Baringo Central Constituency, successfully moved to court.
In a landmark December 2006 ruling, the two-bench Constitutional Court ordered the Electoral Commission of Kenya to create a special constituency for them when next boundaries are reviewed, so that an Ilchamus could be elected to Parliament.
Unfortunately, the two judges missed a golden opportunity to cure that flaw and instead prescribed poison. Their controversial solution that the ECK draws ethnically gerrymandered constituencies is not the cure; it will worsen the confusion swirling around the question of minority/ethnic representation.
IF WE CAN GRANT THE ILCHAMUS A special constituency, why can't we do the same for the Kikuyu minority in Busia? And just how many tiny geographical bits must we carve Kenya into for us to have a Luo living in Nyeri elected an MP?
Any form of ethnic gerrymandering works against the principle that Kenyans are free to live and own property in any part of the country.
The judges should have seen that the Ilchamus were unrepresented because of the inherent exclusivity of our winner-take-all voting system. Hence, they should have rooted for Proportional Representation where minority voters are not shut out, or effective votes limited only to those who happen to live in the "right" constituency.
Winner-take-all systems, also known as First Past The Post, are notorious for not being very hospitable to ethnic and political minorities.
Countries like Kenya, which use the system, are divided into single MP constituencies where winners must garner more votes than the next most popular candidate. This means votes going to a losing candidate are wasted, even if they are only one vote less than the winner.
This leaves significant blocs of voters unrepresented, and renders most political races non-competitive.
Proportional representation does not discriminate against political and ethnic minorities since party or candidate need not come in first to win a seat.
A party wins only if it gains the most national votes. Seats are weighted equally in multi-member constituencies, and parties get the same proportion of seats as votes, and no votes are wasted.
For instance, in a 10 seat constituency, each seat is worth about 10 per cent of the at-large vote. If a party wins 40 per cent of the vote they get four seats; 20 per cent they get two seats. If an Ilchamus candidate wins 10 per cent of the vote, they too would win a seat.
The same would apply to Luos in Nyeri since their domicile would not necessarily block their chances of getting elected.
Among the advantages of the system in use is that it usually produces a strong and stable government since the Cabinet is usually made up of members of only one political party.
A negative is that the very strong leader produced becomes effectively an elected dictator. But coalition governments tend to be more democratic because coalition partners can veto each other's disagreeable policies.
This system is also simple to execute and understand, allowing even those completely illiterate to easily vote for their choice candidates. Further, it maintains a strong constituency-MP link since even powerful MPs know they can be voted out in the next election.
Its main disadvantages are that it is entirely disproportionate and does not adequately represent the opinions of the voting public. A party can lose an election even if it wins most of the votes nationwide, because it got fewer seats than one of its rivals.
IN A THREE-PARTY SYSTEM, FOR example, a party could be elected with 34 per cent of the votes, meaning that 66 per cent of voters do not have any representation and their vote is effectively wasted. Also a party with 40 per cent national vote can have 60-70 per cent seats.
Humanity invented elections so that political differences and competition for power could be resolved without resorting to violence. And the success of any democracy depends on the degree to which an electoral system allows for the election of leaders who reflect the political and social diversity on the ground.
Modern democracy is about the undistorted will of the people. It is about voters having a real choice Kenya needs to adopt proportional representation as the voting system that can accommodate its multi-ethnic, multi-partisan society. So long as our society is unequal politics will reflect and aggravate this inequality.
Mr Okoiti is a playwright and human rights crusader.
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