Tactics used by Kenyan politicians to stay politically relevant

It’s tough being a Kenyan politician out of office and out of power. The Kenyan politician is designed to display, show off, enjoy and strut about in the trappings of power.

These are many and varied, and range from the mundane - such as red carpets and portable toilets at functions that the particular Mheshimiwa graces - to the serious, such as outriders where available, State cars, State bodyguards, and even a little pocket change to splash around at posh restaurants.

But every good thing comes to an end, and the Kenyan politician is not immune to the indignities imposed by political sell-by dates. The result is an unfortunate spectacle, for a Kenyan politician out of political office, cut off from access to government largess and the privileges of office, is a sorry spectacle.

He limps along in misshapen clothes, bearing outsized but unrealised ambitions alongside the giant debt he will have incurred while in the good books of the powers-that-be. The odd torn trousers and ‘laughing shoes’ have been spotted adorning politicians shorn of power, a testament not to an absolute lack of money, but to the lack of fawning assistants and adoring acolytes who would ensure such indignities never happened.

A Kenyan politician out of office is a fish out of water; he is dead, buried and cremated. And so our big political egos have found ways of retaining a semblance of relevance, even when political virility has been chipped away by a combination of time and voter apathy.

Political dignity

As their political power ebbs away, our big men resort to one time-tested tactic that never fails to fire up their ethnic vote base and reclaim whatever little political dignity they can claw back.

They declare that they are running for president at the subsequent elections.

Running for president in Kenya is, mind you, not about winning the presidency. Kenya is one of those strange political dominions where everyone more or less knows who will win the presidency well ahead of the elections themselves. Nairobi wags even claim that the electoral commission itself is privy to the winner of the elections before the elections are held.

But this notwithstanding, our big men have to declare that they are running for the presidency, for a presidential run in Kenya is a source of astonishing financial resources, and a bottomless well of political notoriety. As soon as the declaration is made, matters change rapidly.

Perenial losers

Some Western NGO quickly shows up to help arrange for the never-ending “civic education”, which is actually just poorly-disguised voter bribery. The big man is at the forefront of this, but he makes sure he eats at least half the money that the NGO pumps into the campaign.

Big, fat dinners are arranged in top Nairobi hotels, astonishingly lavish events at which people with deep pockets feast on tiny morsels of alleged food that cost them hundreds of thousands of shillings per plate. They do not flinch at the price, though, because most of the money is stolen from the public anyway.

The only people that actually pay for their own meals are the ordinary wananchi in the street, who are too honest to realise a whole gravy train is there for the taking. And so the big man gets into gear, campaigns half-heartedly in an election that even he knows he will lose, but in which he must pretend to have a chance if only not to be consigned to the political rubbish heap.

It is a tired but reliable mechanism, and as you look around the news outlets, you will see some of the same old operators, who always rise up to declare they are running for president. Some things never change!