Mutuma Mathiu
16 August 2008
opinion
Nairobi — These brief remarks are dedicated to the people of Kamukunji Constituency in Nairobi whose political antics we have had to suffer since December 29, 2007.
First of all, let me tell you my brothers, I am sick of you. You are a riotous, disorganised and violent bunch of Kenyans.
You have no idea what democracy and elections are all about, you are chaotic and quick to anger. But I, as a good Christian, am willing to forgive you these grave failings, since you are my countrymen.
What I cannot forgive is your expectation that despite your chaos and rioting, you were somehow going to end up with an orderly and credible election outcome.
What, pray, do you base that insufferable optimism on?
If you place your left arm on a hard surface, then you take a sharp axe and bring it down sharply on the said arm, on what logic would you expect to continue having two arms?
If you disrobe totally, enter a dirty pigsty and proceed to roll in the muck for three hours, how then can you expect to come out smelling like freshly laundered linen?
If you step on to the path of a speeding matatu, on what miracle would you predicate the expectation of a long, vigorous life?
I have no sympathy at all for the people of Kamukunji. I am actually quite violently unsympathetic to them.
The Daily Nation reporter who covered the polling and counting at the last election in that constituency described it as "chaotic all through", politese for making a complete ass of themselves in the fashion of people who can not govern their passions.
Trouble started during counting at Shauri Moyo Social Hall where the Orange aspirant Mr Ibrahim Ahmed was described as having "clashed" with Party of National Unity supporters and agents over his claims that three ballot boxes had been stuffed at Zawadi Primary School polling station.
He said, according to the Daily Nation, that he would not accept the results because they had been "interfered with".
The paper described his opponent, Mr Simon Mbugua, as having been "quiet as pandemonium broke out in the hall".
Naturally, since Mr Ahmed had raised a red-button issue and was quite likely accusing his opponent of the worst crime in elections, he got no blame for his "principled" stand and his opponent got no credit for his gentlemanly calm.
You know I have been in this election business for almost 20 years now.
I always look forward to the aspirant who will walk to the microphone and say: "May I thank my team for an excellent job. May I also thank the ECK people for doing their best to ensure that the will of the people is respected.
"I congratulate my worthy opponent, who fought a very good campaign. There are certain aspects of this process which were not to our satisfaction and we shall be asking our lawyers to look at them and advise us."
It never happens.
I also found the case of Mr Silvanus Amondi, a civic aspirant in Eastleigh South, who bitterly accused his rivals of having bribed his agents.
Many of his agents did not show up to observe the election on his behalf. A man who cannot lead a handful of agents wants to lead a ward?
I have spoken to one pressman who was in that constituency during the election and he described to me what he saw: People fighting for election records, ballot boxes set aflame, people eating marked ballot papers, complete madness.
All these things were not perpetrated by people from Karachuonyo, South Mugirango, Kinango, or Mandera East.
Neither were they done by Martians, Plutonians or Jupitans (Jovians, if you want to be accurate). They were perpetrated by the good citizens of Kamukunji in their own wisdom, or lack of it thereof.
The problem with Kamukunji as with the rest of the country, is that what we have is not democracy but anarchy.
People do not take responsibility for their actions and they care about nothing but their political ambitions and tribal/partisan aspirations.
It is a game without rules, played and taught right from the top. That is why Kenyans were massacred and the country burnt over politics.
The cost and consequences of this moronic idiocy are borne by law-abiding, tax-paying Kenyans.
The anarchic Kamukunjians eat ballot papers, destroy infrastructure and cause chaos.
You work 16 hours a day and pay taxes and that money is used to pay expensive judges to adjudicate in the election petition and to repair the things they burnt or broke.
In other words there are two classes of people: those who live in a state of blissful anarchy and those who pay for it.
And I have a simple solution. Each constituency has very good records of who lives and votes there. Let each constituency pay the costs of its own democracy.
We, the taxpayers through the Electoral Commission, will pay for national elections in terms of ballot papers, election staff, logistics and all that.
But subsequent events such as petitions, by-elections, destruction of private and public property and additional security, should be paid by the beneficiaries of this "democracy".
Let them have orderly elections, let them be honest and not involve themselves in rigging, in other words let them behave like civilised human beings like the rest of us.
We can't continue paying forever for idiocy and madness.
.....................
Earlier in the year, City Hole fathers were congratulated for their statesmanship and stateswomanship in agreeing amicably on how to share positions, and possibly the loot, at the seat of the city's government.
In the week, the deal seems to have come unstuck and they resorted to the usual punch-ups.
There are those who believe that the city can be greatly improved by gathering all the councillors and City Hole officials in one, small, windowless room -- and tossing in an M67 fragmentation hand grenade.
Mutuma Mathiu is the managing editor, Sunday Nation.
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