Away with politics, it's time to build our economy and our lives

Last Monday, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the reelection of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the repeat presidential election of October 26. This came after a high voltage political season, the most elongated in Kenya’s political history. It would be fair to say that 2017 was a political year, where everything else took second place and virtually every facet of our lives was directed by politics.

Nonetheless, I feel that Kenya is transitioning into a very strong democracy; an example in Africa in spite of all the drama in our politics. I would like to be on the side of the optimists who consider the recent political intrigues as an acid test to our future democratic processes. I disagree vehemently with the argument that our highly divisive politics will lead to a tattered nation.

Risen from the ashes

Who would have thought, way back in 1865, with a highly toxic and highly divisive civil war that the United States would emerge as the world's Superpower with the biggest economy a century later? Who would have thought, way back in 1789 during the birth of the First French Republic that France will today be one of the foremost progressive democracies in the world? It is my hypothesis that what we are going through is the fire crucible that tests the best gold.

However, it is true that our Kenyan way of life, including our economy has been dented by the high political activity in recent months. The Kenya Private Sector Alliance reported that Kenya’s GDP shed-off 10 per cent as a result of the prolonged electioneering period this year.  Since Independence, however, there has always been a repeated pattern in which the rate of our GDP growth dips with the five-year election cycle, before bouncing back.

This speaks to the shortermism that is the nature of the “election menace” in Kenya and its effect to the economy. The heightened political activity simply slows down economic activity, but never touches on the macroeconomic fundamentals of the economic construct. Once the politics goes away, the economy bounces back. The worst of this happened in 2007/2008 post-election violence in which the economic growth dipped from a high of 7 per cent to 1.5 per cent.

However, after the political differences were resolved, the economy went on a positive trajectory to a 6 per cent high in 2012/2013. Here are some critical facts; immediately the Supreme Court announced the annulment of the August 8 elections, the NSE 20 Share Index declined by more than 5 per cent triggering a brief shut down in the first week of September.  This speaks volumes on how our politics directly affects the lives and day-to-day operations of people and businesses in the country.

Kenyans relieved

While taking cognizance of the actuality that a section of the Kenyan voters feels dispossessed with the conclusion of the presidential contest by the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling to uphold Mr Kenyatta’s victory, it would be a fair supposition that most Kenyans welcomed this development with relief. And the start to normalcy can already be felt.

Immediately the Court ruled to uphold the election, meaning there would be no further elections; the Nairobi Securities Exchange climbed 1.4 per cent, which is the highest since September 22. The yield on the Eurobond, which is due in June 2024 fell 0.2 per cent to 6.03 per cent. This is an indication that our country risk profile has gone down, as a direct consequence of the end of the political process.

This is a sign to Kenyans that it is time to move on and build the economy. While we can’t divorce politics for the other elements of our national construct, too much emphasis on politics and the divisionism that comes with it will only hurt the economy and hurt the country. The fact that Kenyans had to intermittently close down their businesses for several days due to political activity over the last several months should be an indicator why we should move on and build our nation.

Going by Harold Laswell’s conceptualization of politics as “who gets what, when, and how,” it would be a fair interpretation that if we prolong our politicking, what we get is a further downward spiral of our economic prospects, and a destruction of our social fabric. If we agree as a people that the season of politics has come to an end, we give our economy a chance to grow, and secure our livelihoods and that of our children.

Mr Karugu is a management consultant (strategy and analytics) based in Nairobi

fkarugu@revamp.co.ke