Political parties play a pivotal role in democratisation. They are the basic organisations through which the people elect their leaders or vie for political office. However, parties have ironically been a weak link in democratisation, as they tend to be vehicles politicians use to seek and monopolise power.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that they end up becoming more of exclusive clubs and hardly agents of good governance. Our parties are notoriously mismanaged and hardly accountable to the majority of the members. Elections always bring out the worst in them. The primaries are often manipulated to favour party leaders’ favourites. There is an option of running for as independents, but its impact is woefully minimal.
Ideally, people should join parties whose ideology or policies they subscribe to. However, in our set-up, this hardly applies. It is not an unusual, for instance, to see a staunch member of one party immediately cross over to another after losing a nomination or being sidelined. The parties are mostly amorphous organisations that are more of election vehicles. Many of them hardly have a verifiable members’ register and are not transparent on funds.
The simmering battle in the ruling Jubilee Party is yet another manifestation of just how the leadership calls the shots in these organisations. The feud follows an apparent unilateral decision to change the composition of its National Management Committee. Deputy President William Ruto, who anybody would have expected to be the second in command in the party, has denounced the changes as “illegal and fraudulent”. This can only mean that the DP, having apparently fallen out with his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta, has probably been sidelined in the decision making in the party. Without streamlining and strengthening parties, it is impossible to fully democratise the country.
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