Nairobi Star (Nairobi)
Maina Kiai
17 November 2008
column
Boston — The campaigns are over and across the world people are getting used to the idea of a President Obama. So much so that even the Group of 20 meeting in Washington on the global financial crisis decided not to make formally binding decisions till April next year, tacitly deciding to give Obama and his administration time to settle and get to grips with the issues at hand. Obama and his team, to be sure, are busy getting ready for January 20, 2009 when Barack Obama will become President Obama. But it now appears that these are issues he has been grappling with for a while.
As far back as August, soon after the Democratic Party convention when he was formally nominated as the presidential candidate, Barack Obama contacted John Podesta, once the White House Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, and a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton, to ask him to coordinate his transition team. Podesta, agreed and soon begun discussions with Bush's White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten. Such foresight and preparation is Obama's hallmark and it says a lot about how he will govern.
And incidentally, all this was at a time when Obama himself was publicly insisting on not "jinxing" the campaign by talking of "if" rather than "when" and working as though he was always behind in the polls and the campaign.
As he prepares for his formal takeover, he is already thinking and working through the financial crisis that has engulfed the US and other advanced economies. This will probably be his top issue for the first years and part of his legacy will depend on how he deals with it. But as you read the "Audacity of Hope" you realize that he is prepared for it, having devoured the history of F.D. Roosevelt who took office in eerily similar economic circumstances in 1933. And he peppers his speeches and writings with wisdoms from Abraham Lincoln, another president who took office when America was even more divided than it is now, and who was almost as unknown as Obama was a year ago.
There are many issues to worry about in the financial crisis and the heads of state who gathered in Washington this past weekend touched on many of them. One of the interesting ones is the issue of financial compensation for corporate leaders which has exploded to levels never imagined. Today corporate CEOs in the USA make about 350 times more than the average American worker, up from 42 times in 1980! And these top earners are taxed at lower levels than ordinary middle class citizens, as one of the effects of the Bush tax cuts of early 2000. In fact billionaires are taxed at lower rates than plumbers and teachers. The reversal of this imbalance was a central theme in the Obama campaign, and you can be sure that this will be changed in the next year or so.
This is pro-people leadership, which we so lack in Kenya.
In our beloved Kenya, our MPs have decided, again, that they will not be taxed on their allowances for some indiscernible reason. A process where the employee decides what compensation and taxation they get is beyond funny. I wonder how many of these MPs allow allow their employees--in their homes, farms, businesses, or offices-to set their own terms and decide their taxes! And even though some contend that they are not paid well enough, the facts state otherwise. In fact on a per capita basis our MPs are way and above paid better than any other parliamentarians in the world! Yet we remain as poor as we were 20 years ago.
Then there is somersaulting and verbal diarrhea that the Waki report is causing our "leaders." It dissects the reality of our institutions, showing us that we really don't have institutions of governance that we can trust in Kenya-from the Electoral Commission, to the Police, prosecution, parliament, judiciary, and the presidency. Hence the recommendation of Special Courts that are not easy to control, or if that is not done, invoking the International Criminal Court.
As its getting clearer to the powerful and connected that the non-implementation of the report means triggering the ICC , where there have no control or influence, they will come up with recommendations-dressed up in sovereignty or national pride-to try to minimize Waki's recommendations, but removing or reducing the international elements. But just as we needed international intervention to halt our crisis in January, it is clear that we will never deal with impunity without significant international involvement. The appeals to national pride and sovereignty are simply games that insult our intelligence and are made for selfish, ulterior motives. Just consider the histories of those-politicians, lawyers, analysts etc-who make these appeals and recommendations, and you see a history of greed, selfishness, and corruption at the core.
I believe that Kenyans, again and again, especially since 2002 have shown that they really want a break with the past and to move on to a new Kenya that respects them and public interest. It is time our leadership realized it and stopped these games they subject us to all the time. That is one of Obama's major lessons: trust the people and in their basic goodness.
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