Jubilee’s Secretary-General Raphael Tuju has stoked controversy with a declaration that the party will lock out corrupt individuals from contesting in the organisation’s elections planned for early next year.
But outside the toxic intra- and inter-party politics, he has broached a subject that should be discussed candidly: sanitising party politics.
In fact, the bigger debate is, what should we do to create order in party politics? All political parties are suffocating not only because of corruption, but extreme dictatorship, ethnicity and nepotism.
No political party can stand the integrity test. They are merely vehicles for ethnic mobilisation to ascend to power.
As once sardonically put by retired President Daniel arap Moi, parties have their owners. Which is tragic but, unfortunately, the bitter truth.
Parties are personal outfits established to serve own interests. None has an ideology or values.
No party has ever done credible elections. Party nominations are a perennial sham.
Officials are handpicked and imposed on members. At any rate, none of the parties can claim to have members in the strict meaning of the word.
What they have are followers, not card-holding and fee-paying members.
The parody is manifest during national elections, when individuals seeking nominations for presidential, parliamentary or county positions shift from one party to another without shame.
And the parties are discarded soon after the elections. Nobody cares about ideology and principles.
The reason we are concerned about party issues is that what they do has a major bearing on the management of national affairs.
Parties form governments. They are responsible for statecraft once they win an election.
That presupposes that they have structures and processes for organisational management.
Lack of strong foundations and proper systems within parties explains why the subsequent governments always malfunction.
For example, as currently constituted, the ruling party, Jubilee, is disintegrating due to lack of discipline.
Party members operate at cross-purposes. They tear at each other without respect to party ideals, if any.
Intra-party rivalry is extended to the government, where the MPs oppose motions to support their administration.
Conversely, the crumbling of the National Super Alliance (Nasa) has killed opposition in Parliament, which is bad for democracy as the ruling party can run amok and lead the country astray.
Creating order in national politics must start with parties. They are the foundations for governance and, unless constituted as organised institutions with ideologies and working systems and structures, they cannot offer transformational national leadership.
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