Tone down toxic politics and focus on agendas that bring development

One of the most striking things in Kenyan politics is the abundance of vitriol, noisy fearmongering and sheer political madness. And all because of politics around the 2022 presidential succession.

From name-calling, mudslinging, religious and political involvement, Kieleweke and Tangatanga groupings, leaked footage of a conversation around rebuilding Kiambaa Church, a fake letter from a Cabinet secretary to the President and the “La Mada 40 assassination plot”, the list appears to be endless.

The game plan looks like this: Stir up the political podium and fill it with a lot of political noise.

With all the challenges that Kenya faces, political noise creates the perception that there is a big problem. Soon, with the ‘problem’ and a complacent media, Kenyans start asking the President to address these ‘problems’ and act.

But President Uhuru Kenyatta can see it. He has refused to be drawn into the planned confusion and political noise cleverly focused on 2022 succession politics. In short, he has called their bluff.

He has clearly seen the game plan of his detractors: Make political noise and call him to ‘tidy’ things up. Uhuru, though, is focused on his development agenda.

This scenario creates confusion in the minds of voters. Indeed, if you asked anyone (except politicians) across the country, thoughtful voters are asking how the political system degenerated into its current state.

In fact, it is doubtful whether there has been a more poisonous political atmosphere in Kenya just one year after a general election than the one that currently permeates our body politic. Fingers will be pointed. But it’s just awful.

Political leadership

This is why if our current body politic was anything to write home about, then democracy would be a fragile flower; one that we take for granted and hardly notice our institutions and beliefs.

This is because ours is the politics that challenge the rule of law, fight against vices and the proper conduct of politics.

The current situation is just but a symptom, not the cause, of our current state of play.

It has been ping-pong all through; two steps forward, three steps backward. And our political leadership doesn’t seem to learn. Yet with this, political opportunism is taking deeper root. And with such, deepening ethnic divisions with an effect on the economy, and therefore, livelihoods.

With all these obstacles, how will the country achieve the political pillar of Vision 2030 that seeks to achieve the development of a political system that is issue-based, people-centered, result-oriented and accountable to the public?

Ironically, the Constitution provides for the devolution of power as a means of eliminating a ‘winner-takes-all’ scenario. But politicians seem to know better.

Pray, sometimes I ask myself, shall we ever move to politics based on policies and hope, and not fear? When will our politicians understand that negative rhetoric has consequences?

Tempting reminder

Do they really understand that when uncertainty, fear and anger are used to light a fuse, then an explosion is inevitable? When one looks at it, what some of our politicians seem to be doing is to create a political climate that does not allow, or even encourage politicians to appeal to ideologies to win. It is meant to create political waves with the excessive amounts of money.

We are all staring at the creation of a ravenous, ruthless political culture that demands complicity or consequences, rewards worst instincts, and sneers at good faith. It is a culture that disdains opponents – from below the line to above it, the development of a febrile and instantaneous political culture that rewards and keeps those with the most uncompromising distaste for their opponents.

And so, because of politics of the 2022 elections, seemingly, acts of verbal violence have given every politician a tempting reminder that they can say almost anything they like and make hay from it.

But it is also to do with something much more deeply and subtly rooted; a careless, universal conception of politics as a battleground, a metaphor so entrenched in our politics now than before.

Yet, ugly as they are, these political machinations are unsurprising, perhaps even understandable. What is stranger still is the speed with which the old rhetoric of confrontation has returned across the political spectrum instead of metaphors of growth and development.

In all these, what is clear is that until we come to answers, we may be unable to dismantle the toxicity that has emerged in our politics, which arises from the need to take electoral control of the Government and the huge benefits of getting it or losing.

We certainly need a new tone. We could be better.

Prof Mogambi, a communication and social change expert, teaches at the University of Nairobi. hmogambi@yahoo.co.uk