State capture has been Kenya’s biggest enemy

The Constitution paid great attention to creating protections against slippage, personal ambition and the abuse of authority.

Kenyans have had bad experience and acknowledge that those holding state powers are capable of doing wrong in the name of doing right.

The whole structure of the Constitution emphasised the importance of public life being governed by an organic body of humane norms and values.

But having a beautiful Constitution alone has not made the country great. There have been serious attempts to hollow out the Constitution and institutions it has created through a state capture.

The historical centerpiece of the Kenyan problem is the politics of state capture. State capture has turned against the Constitution, the law and Kenya’s democratic processes and institutions.

State capture has had profound implications for the consolidation of democracy, systematically eroding democratic processes by undermining the election of public representatives, the institutionalisation and normalisation of democracy and the socioeconomic transformation processes in Kenya.

2002 Narc was regime change in a democratic electoral process, but not political transition that would dismantle the entrenched state captors. Political transition was necessary to fundamentally alter the governance system, values, institutions, Constitution et cetera. This never happened.

With the promulgation of the Constitution in 2010, the first election under the new constitution in 2013 was supposed to herald a process of political transition, leading to state transformation. This has aborted because state capture has prevailed.

State-capture has been executed through a network of deeply embedded patronage system.

State capture thrives due to two conditions; moral capital rot and lack of strict constitutional criteria on who can be president. The consequences of state capture have been political decay and emergence of a shadow state that is in conflict with the established constitutional state.

There has been a very systematic and serious attempt to hollow out constitutional democracy by capturing important state institutions. There is diversion of power from citizens to private interests in this situation of state capture. As state captors erode the independence of the state, the civil space has been closing.

State capture kills the progressive Constitution and its values. Unless completely exposed and prosecuted, the power brokers in both politics and business who have fully captured the Kenyan state since independence, will keep subverting the Constitution, stifle and cripple institutions, and manipulate governance processes.

Daily, Kenyans see examples of abuse of power, manipulation of the rules and regulations of state institutions and attacks on civic spaces.

As state capture is fully entrenched, political competition is limited and undermined and elections and other institutions become mere façades intended to provide legitimacy to government.

The capture of the state, with the executive as the entry point, is driven by motives whose aim is to conquer and control state apparatus, subvert the democratic will of the people, undermine the sovereignty of the republic and overthrow the Constitution.

In order to consolidate democracy, there should be established ‘rules of the game’. State capture undermines these rules by eroding processes of democracy such as elections and state institutions such as electoral agencies and the police.

Kenya state capture has enabled powerful individuals in politics, security, civil service and business, institutions, companies and groups to influence the country’s policies, legal environment and economy to benefit their private interests with negative consequences for economic development, regulatory quality and the provision of public services.

There is the systematic takeover of state institutions by allies of the high and mighty in government and the resultant exploitation of institutions for commercial advantage and profit.

To capture the state, a greedy leader must first be elected though politicised ethnic identities and a populist political agenda with intent to bend the state to serve his or her private financial interests and those of family and loyal retainers.

Because the state is no longer the centre of decision-making, the accountability of the elected official to the electorate is subverted and government institutions begin to corrode.

Robust, active and sustained civic activism aimed at combating state capture and counteracting the impunity of state captors should be launched in Kenya. The country needs to get under the skin of the politics of state capture; to get on record why, how and what has been happening; and to make clear findings of political accountability. Speed is of essence. This matter cannot wait any longer.

You can change the Constitution a million times but nothing will change without dismantling detestable state capture. Civil society should establish inquisitorial People’s Hearings into State Capture. This would act as the critical juncture to turn the tide against chronic corruption and aggressively fight the scourge of state capture to build efficient and ethical governance, and restore state integrity.

 

Mr Ndungu is Executive Director, International Centre for Policy and Conflict. @NdunguWainaina