Campus politics is proof that Kenyan politics has no future

A couple of months ago,  the mainstream media headlines were filled with the story of this popular politician who claimed that he had been given a gun with no bullets. So he left the party  and it seems like he went and bought his own rifle (of course with bullets ).According to our political analysts, since he had never used a gun with bullets before, the politician decided to pull the trigger and shot himself-Political suicide!.

Defection from one camp to the other is one of the many issues that tend to arise in periods when we are approaching elections. Betrayal, tribal affiliations, voter bribery, hooliganism and many others usually show up at such times and they all seem to have their roots from campus politics in our various institutions. The campus politicians seem to   always imitate the behavior of politicians at the national level and with that, you can bet that Kenyan politics has no future.

Many of these politicians have defected from one party to the other citing lack of democracy, wrangles and power issues. Ask a campus student what power is and the answer you will get is power ni pesa. I concur.

Take for example the main disorder that has often adversely affected the structure of the Kenyan politics, ethnicity. Our Universities and colleges across the country have set up ethnic associations with a perception of embracing diversity, championing grievances of the underrepresented and creation of a democratic climate. Though these objectives might be noble, the demerits surpasses the merits. Its demerits are the source of tribal politics with consequences of riots and post-election violence. When such affiliations wins the election their hidden slogan has always been ‘it’s our time to eat.’

Another issue is women in leadership. At campus level the norm is always that there are seats preserved for women with very few showing the guts of competing with their male colleagues for top seats. It’s uncommon for a female to be a student leader in higher learning institutions and so is the case in our national politics and even in the corporate leadership.

Unfair running of polls has also been a subject during the both 2007 and the 2013 elections and this is also a hard bone to crack in our institutions. Some administrations have always been on the radar for botching the election by doing selection for students and therefore occurrence of crisis.

In campaign periods we have experienced aspirants in rallies giving unrealistic promises and manifestos that always end unfulfilled. Bribery at this time is always rampant and this has always been emulated at the campus level. There is this belief that for you to vie for a particular post money is key. This needs to change.