Leaders have grabbed parties from the voters

This is a brand new year, and as they say in the United States, it is an election year in Kenya. General Election campaigns are already in high gear. The two competing political horses, NARC Kenya and Orange Democratic Movement Kenya are both conducting retreats for their legislators to map out strategies amongst other items in their agendas.

My beef with the two political parties’ leadership is that other than public rallies they are very fond of holding in various towns and trading centres, all their other activities on their political organizations are restricted to their respective allied Members of Parliament. In participatory democracy and competition politics it is the people who matter and not just the political leaders. Grassroots supporters are the ones who need to be involved in all the activities not just to be lectured to in public rallies.

For instance, you have NARC Kenya allied legislators meeting in a retreat in Nanyuki, and supposedly, one important issue on their agenda is to ratify their party’s constitution. Although the party has no major intra-party political differences as to who will be their presidential flag-bearer, the only issue of contention is the vice presidential slot where most of the MPs particularly ministers are positioning themselves to become the torchbearer’s running mate. President Mwai Kibaki is expected to seek re-election using NARC Kenya ticket. Other than that, it is what many would consider the party to be smooth sailing preparing to battle ODM Kenya in the next Election.

The ODM-K, too, will have their retreat at the same Nanyuki resort a couple days after their competition wrap up theirs. Funny thing about
ODM-K is that every important political decision involves the group’s declared presidential candidates and a few individuals — restricted to the serving lawmakers clique.
Sadly, all the officials of these two parties, from grassroots to national office, are serving on interim basis. I bet anyone that, none of these two political parties will conduct party elections. The word out there they will paddle is that, there is no time to do so as the country is already in an election year and the internal differences that may arise will likely affect party unity.
One reason why FORD Kenya is disintegrating is the fact that its recently controversially elected national chairman Musikari Kombo acted as if the party is his personal property. It is an open secret that the Local Government Minister refused to hold party elections until he was cornered to do so. And when he carried out the elections it was marred with irregularities. The party is now falling apart, if not already fallen, with another party being carved from it, the New Ford Kenya led by the Housing Minister Soita Shitanda.

One would have hoped that, the leadership of these two parties would learn from the hard lessons facing FORD Kenya. The interim Chairman of NARC Kenya Mukhisa Kituyi, a former a longtime FORD Kenya member himself wanted to wrestle Kombo for the highest office of the party, but in vain because the party did not conduct elections for the members to decide.
I say all these because it appears that political parties in Kenya belong to those who form them. They never become people’s parties or people’s movements as in many other democratic societies. I can cite several examples. The reason why NARC Kenya was formed is because the Health Minister Charity Ngilu who is the chairperson of the original NARC took the party as her personal property and refused to relinquish the "ownership." No party elections were held to fill any of the party offices from the local to the national level.
It can be recalled that not long ago, former President Daniel arap Moi publicly told people that the Kanu ‘ina wenyewe’ and he did not mean the grassroots supporters, but certain individuals. No one and I mean no one can wrestle SAFINA party from the Kabete MP Paul Muite. Why not? you may ask, and the answer is pretty simply: The party is his baby and personal property.

Unless the laws are changed Kenyans will not reap the benefits of the true multi-party politics. In America political parties belong to the people and not to the leaders. In addition although in the United States, the Electoral College elects the president of the United States as opposed to the people, but the party members (ordinary Americans) elect their respective party’s presidential candidates. Senator Barrack Obama will be conversing the entire country to seek his Democratic Party’s grassroots support from ordinary DP members should he enter into the fray for the DP presidential nomination. He will not restrict himself to Washington DC hoping for a compromise candidacy.

Unless one is in a deep sleep, this year’s General Election is likely to be a two horse race two - ODM Kenya and NARC Kenya. I challenge the two parties to hold respective party elections. Kenyans need to see how they manage the elections and see the aftermath of any fallout.
President Kibaki may be a great president for Kenya, and perhaps he is, but we cannot have him run the country without proper political party structures, as is the case in his first term. As for ODM Kenya, people need to see how organized they are as they claim to be the government in waiting.

Boldly speaking, political parties bigwigs should have the audacity to involve their grassroots supporters in all their activities and deliberations. Multi-party democracy is supposed to be participatory democracy.
ODM Kenya and NARC Kenya interim leadership need to involve the people. It is the people who hold the key to political power. They are the ones who will put you in office, not your never-ending ‘retreats’.