The hubbub over ‘village’ parties

I love villages. They are often pristine, unpolluted, and largely innocent. At least my ancestral village – known as either Ghana or Ngiini in Kitui Township – is one such place. That’s why I built Kitui Villa there. I’ve unofficially renamed the domicile Ubuntu Village, a homage to our philosophy as an African people.

So, I don’t like people who malign “villages”. I’ve come to distaste epithets like “village idiots” or the use of the term “villager” to describe an unworldly, illiterate, and unsophisticated “native”. In this vein, shame on those who despise so-called “village parties”.

I believe the term “village parties” in Kenyan political lexicon was originated by DP William Ruto. Mr Ruto, if you understand his political parentage, is a true son of Kanu, the party that brought independence to Kenya, and once bestrode the country like a colossus. After 1969, when Mzee Jomo Kenyatta banned Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s KPU, Kenya became a de facto one-party state. Meaning that the state and the Kanu party were unofficially fused into one ruling behemoth of a party-state. By definition such a party-state is undemocratic and authoritarian. On June 10, 1982, the late AG Charles Njonjo and former President Mwai Kibaki rammed through Parliament a constitutional amendment to make Kenya a de jure one-party state. 

Kenya had dropped all pretence of being a democracy by making it official that the state was a bona fide in-your-face dictatorship. In a twist of poetic justice, both Mr Kibaki and Mr Njonjo – who helped President Daniel Moi abolish the accoutrements of formal democracy – became his victims. The lesson couldn’t be clearer – pass draconian laws at your own peril because they may become a loaded gun aimed at your head. The idea of single large, hegemonic political parties with a monopoly, or near monopoly, of the political arena is antithetical to choice, which lies at the heart of the democratic franchise. It constrains citizens and puts them in a single sack like potatoes. It’s a dictator’s dream.

Non-dominant political parties

Even initially well-meaning political parties, such as South Africa’s African National Congress, become corrupt and get power-drunk because of their dominance of national politics. That’s why Kanu, even after it had lost its reason to rule and a fatigued brain-dead political sledgehammer, roamed the country like a mad elephant stomping over everything. Eventually, with the leadership of Narc’s Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, the beast was put out of its misery in 2002. Mr Kibaki helped kill the monster he had created. Mr Ruto, on the other hand, was on the wrong side of history. He was among a cabal of diehard Kanu hawks who fought tooth and nail against democracy and the Narc wave that swept Kanu out.

It’s not surprising that today Mr Ruto would refer to smaller, non-dominant political parties as “village parties”. His political pedigree disdains dissent and choice. He was the moving spirit behind the creation of Jubilee, a mega party out of TNA and URP. He hoped to turn Jubilee into another Kanu so that he could engineer a smooth succession of Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta. Inheriting Mr Kenyatta and ruling Kenya without a single dissenting voice have been Mr Ruto’s guideposts. That’s why he has chafed at the emergence of “village parties” – especially in the Mt Kenya region – which he believes he’s herded away from Mr Kenyatta. Putting Gema in one political sack and becoming their overlord is the top priority. 

The term “village parties” serves two purposes. First, it demeans the smaller parties and wages psychological warfare against them. Secondly, it discredits them as “tribal” and unworthy.” By extension, it tells the leaders of those parties that they are minnows in the political space, insignificant earthlings who should kowtow to him, bowl in hand. He wants UDA, his party, which has bedrock support in his Kalenjin Rift Valley to extend a suffocating blanket over Gema country. As we saw recently, he employed the same political skulduggery to swallow up Amani’s Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula Ford-Kenya. For all practical purposes, Mr Ruto has politically killed Mr Mudavadi and Amani and Mr Wetang’ula and Ford-Kenya. Their “village parties” aren’t anymore. 

The design of the 2010 Constitution abhors autocracy. It calls for a thousand flowers to bloom. That’s why it allows candidates to run independent of political parties. It obviously doesn’t outlaw hegemonic political parties, but it keeps the political field open to make it difficult for political behemoths to husband, and I use the word with deliberate negative connotation, all space. That’s why I applaud Narc-Kenya’s Martha Karua, TSP Kenya’s Mwangi Kiunjuri’s, and PEP’s Moses Kuria’s for “flipping the bird” on Mr Ruto and UDA. They, and other smaller parties, must stand their ground. They can join coalitions but retain their own legal personalities. But it’s important they are driven by ideology, not primordial ethnicity or banal regionalism. As Ms Karua has forcefully argued, we can’t allow Kenya to be returned to the one-party state. 

Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School. He’s chair of KHRC. @makaumutua.