The trajectory the ruling Jubilee Party is taking is detrimental to the evolution of a democratic society.
Increasingly, the party is becoming exceedingly dictatorial and patronising. Early in the week, the party’s top leadership sacked two Senate officials — Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen and Chief Whip Susan Kihika — ostensibly on account of gross disrespect for President Uhuru Kenyatta, the party leader.
In quick succession, it has followed that up with a threat to expel five nominated senators who skipped the State House meeting. Indications are that worse things are on the cards, which is terrifying.
Expelling members from a party is retrogressive and despotic, a relic of past oppressive regimes. Precisely, it is a sad reminder of the dark days of Kanu, which in its heyday established a disciplinary committee chaired by the late Okiki Amayo that turned into a monster.
The committee terrorised, humiliated and expelled party members, particularly Cabinet ministers and MPs, for real and imagined crimes, including speaking independently in Parliament in a manner perceived to be critical of the administration.
Indeed, the discontent that the committee elicited compelled President Daniel arap Moi to disband it. That history is important.
The Jubilee top leadership is going overboard and, unless checked, is bound to pull the country back to that horrifying past.
Kenyans do not want a replay of that murky history. The clamour for multipartyism, and the enactment of the current Constitution in 2010, served to end dictatorship and opened up the political landscape, giving everyone a chance to play and make decisions without restrictions.
Broadly, the excesses exhibited in the party stifle political thought and practice.
Members of a party are first and foremost citizens with inalienable rights, including that of association, movement, free thought and expression. Belonging in a party does not take away those rights.
Granted, parties have governing rules aimed at instilling discipline and creating harmony, steering members towards a common goal, but within civil rights.
And it is not only Jubilee stifling free thought. ODM recently de-whipped Narok Senator Ledama Olekina on the grounds that he was voted to chair the Senate’s County Public Accounts and Investments Committee irregularly.
The angst was that he was voted in by Jubilee members, beating ODM’s choice candidate.
The essence of multiparty democracy is to open up political space. As parties form governments, they must promote internal democracy if they are to be trusted with statecraft. We must end emerging autocratic practices among parties.
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