The war drums will not win the election: Kenya’s ruling class must face the record

By Mr. Fredrick Kipchumba Chelimo – PWD

Email; jiamini.network@gmail.com

“A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” — Nelson Mandela and “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” — Sun Tzu*“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter*.” — Winston Churchill. These great quotes from these leaders may have relevance to us a citizens of Kenya today more than ever.

Kenya’s ruling political class appears to be discovering an uncomfortable truth: political noise becomes less persuasive when citizens are quietly keeping score. As the country moves closer to another decisive electoral contest, sections of the ruling party and its affiliated political formations have adopted an increasingly combative posture, as though the coming election were a battlefield and every political competitor were an enemy to be eliminated. The war drums are getting louder, the language harsher and the personal attacks more relentless. Yet beneath the noise lies a fundamental political question: why is a government that should be presenting its record spending so much energy fighting the people who want to replace it?

There is nothing wrong with robust political competition. Democracies require disagreement, scrutiny and competing visions. What should concern Kenyans is the transformation of legitimate political competition into political warfare, where opponents are branded, ridiculed, intimidated or portrayed as enemies simply because they have exercised their constitutional right to seek elective office. The politician who cannot defend a record without destroying the character of a competitor is not demonstrating strength. He is revealing the poverty of his argument. Kenya has had enough of the political goonism that treats public debate as a street fight.

The emerging political class must understand that citizens are not asking politicians to manufacture enemies. They are asking them to solve problems. The mother struggling to pay school fees does not care which politician can insult another most creatively. The young graduate without employment is not comforted by another rally in which leaders trade accusations. The farmer facing expensive inputs and uncertain markets wants answers. The patient confronting an inaccessible or unaffordable health system wants answers. The small trader battling taxation and rising operating costs wants answers. These citizens are increasingly asking a simple question: what happened to the promises?

This is perhaps the most serious challenge facing any administration approaching re-election. Campaign promises create expectations, and expectations eventually become a political invoice. A government cannot promise transformation during campaigns, make ambitious declarations after assuming office, revise its priorities repeatedly and then expect citizens to remember only the rhetoric while forgetting their lived experience. Consistency matters.

If a government promised economic relief, citizens will ask whether their household finances improved. If it promised jobs, young people will ask where those opportunities are. If it promised affordable and accessible healthcare, patients will judge the system from the hospital queue, the pharmacy counter and the family budget. If it promised to transform education, parents and students will judge the reality in classrooms rather than the language used at political rallies. This is the uncomfortable nature of democratic accountability: the citizen experiences government personally.

There is another issue that the political class should not underestimate—the perception that governments sometimes respond to social and political frustrations by creating increasingly punitive or restrictive legal frameworks rather than addressing the grievances generating those frustrations. Laws are necessary for the functioning of a modern state, but legislation should never become a substitute for listening to citizens.

When people begin to perceive new laws as draconian, excessive, selectively enforced or designed to silence legitimate dissent, the relationship between government and governed becomes dangerously transactional. Citizens may comply with the law while simultaneously losing confidence in those who make it. A democratic government should not fear criticism. It should welcome scrutiny because accountability is not an obstacle to governance; it is one of governance’s safeguards.

Parliamentarians, particularly those supporting the administration, must therefore appreciate that voting for legislation is not merely a parliamentary procedure. Every law carries consequences into the lives of ordinary people. Representatives cannot pass controversial measures today and expect voters to forget their role tomorrow. Parliamentary votes are part of the public record, and the electorate increasingly has the ability and determination to revisit them. This is where political accountability is changing.

The politician’s greatest assumption used to be that citizens would remember the campaign slogan but forget the parliamentary vote. That assumption is becoming obsolete. Citizens are increasingly asking who voted for what, who made which promise, who defended which policy and who remained silent when the public expected courage. The political record is becoming a permanent marking scheme. And no amount of political noise can erase it.

The ruling establishment should therefore be extremely careful about the growing culture of political intimidation and personal vilification. A politician announcing his or her intention to contest an election is not an enemy of Kenya. A critic is not necessarily a traitor. A journalist asking difficult questions is not automatically part of a conspiracy. A citizen demanding accountability is exercising democratic citizenship. The state belongs to citizens—not to political parties.

The presidency is a constitutional office, not a political possession. Parliament belongs to the people, not to party headquarters. Public resources are held in trust. Political power is temporary. This is why the spectacle of political opulence becomes particularly uncomfortable when contrasted with the economic difficulties confronting ordinary Kenyans. When citizens are struggling with education costs, healthcare challenges, unemployment, food prices and household financial pressures, conspicuous displays of political wealth can create a profound psychological distance between rulers and the ruled. People notice that distance.

They may not shout about it at rallies. They may not confront politicians publicly. But they remember. And ultimately, elections provide citizens with the most peaceful instrument ever invented for expressing that memory.

The ruling party should therefore stop behaving as though the Opposition is its greatest threat. Its greatest electoral threat is its own record. If the record is strong, present it. If there are failures, acknowledge them. If promises remain unfinished, explain why and provide a credible path to completion. If policies have caused hardship, listen and correct them. If laws have generated legitimate public concern, engage citizens rather than dismissing them.

There is still time for political maturity. Kenya does not need leaders who spend their remaining mandate sharpening political spears. It needs leaders who finish the work for which they were elected. It does not need warlords of political rhetoric. It needs statesmen and women capable of disagreeing without dehumanising one another.

The electorate, for its part, must also mature beyond the politics of personality and mobilisation. Voters should not allow themselves to become foot soldiers in somebody else’s political war. They should examine records, compare promises with delivery, interrogate legislative decisions and demand evidence. The ballot should become the place where citizens settle political arguments—not the rally ground, not social media and certainly not the street. Kenya’s political class should understand that the citizen has become the ultimate auditor. And the auditor is no longer interested in excuses.

The war drums may be loud, but they cannot drown out the lived experiences of millions of Kenyans. The insults may be fierce, but they cannot substitute for delivery. The promises may be beautifully packaged, but they cannot permanently conceal inconsistency. And laws may command obedience, but they cannot manufacture public trust. When the election finally arrives, politicians will discover that citizens have been listening—not only to what they said, but to what they did.

The ruling class should therefore lower the political temperature, put away the weapons of verbal warfare and face the electorate with the only currency that ultimately matters in a democracy: a credible record of service.

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