The stage set for untold violence over the next year

The Kenyan political class has thoroughly normalised thuggery. Any politician worth his or her salt must now command a militia of goons.

In a number of cases, it has been alleged that even leading government officials have on occasion asked goons to deputise police officers.

The net result is “goonism” is now, for all intents and purposes, officially sanctioned by the government. It is no longer considered breaking the law to mobilise young men to commit vandalism and other crimes.

The individuals involved may be killed or arrested. That is for sure. However, the mobilisers always walk free. That is the pact among political class.

This realisation makes the Makau Mutua Protest Victims Compensation Panel even more macabre. It is bad enough that the government has an arbitrarily determined “rate per victim” in an effort to avoid the judicialisation of police brutality and political responsible for state-sanctioned torture, disappearances, and killings.

Now we have to contend with the fact that the available of funds to compensate victims will likely create a moral hazard among politicians. Over the next year, a lot of young Kenyans will therefore become expendable “goons” to be abused, and often killed, all in the name of politics.

And because of the implicit pact of impunity among the political class, no one will be held accountable. The government will, instead, throw cash at a few of the victims’ families and call it a day.

What follows from here should be clear to any thinking person. Now that “goonism” has been democratized and backed by impunity, the market for violence is about to get even more competitive – especially as we head towards the elections next year.

And since “goonism” is not a full-time job, in their spare time the merchants of violence will apply the same skills to terrorising Kenyans.

It is already commonplace for vandalism to follow political rallies (since goons mobilize for attendance). It is a short walk from that to organised crime.

And since some of the goons have direct links to the police, no one should be surprise when some rogue elements within law enforcement join in on the action.

Once established, it will be mighty hard to dislodge such networks. Especially if law enforcement, judicial officials, and senior politicians are involved. Organized criminality will simply infest ever more domains in our civic and private lives.

Do we have time to correct course? Sadly, in many ways the damage is already done. The genesis of our predicament is the fact that, when it comes to “goonism” senior government officials want to have their cake and eat it.

Rather than go after the criminal sponsors of goons (including politicians), officials want to retain the option of using goons themselves towards extra-legal ends.

Many believe in the idea of fighting “goonism” with “goonism” in the political battlefield. With all that in mind, the stage is now set for high levels of political violence and other forms of criminality over the next year and beyond.

-The writer is a professor at Georgetown University