We must transform political parties

This column last week warned about the dangers of politicisation of our development and economic processes. I acknowledged that politics plays an important and indispensable aspect in any given society.

It is against this background that when later in the week I got involved in a discussion about the lack of focus on adequate regulation of the country’s politics, the issue replayed itself.

The occasion was the launch of the Special Issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies focusing on the 2017 elections. At the function, constitutional expert Prof Yash Pal Ghai lamented about the failure by many scholars and practitioners to remember the words of Article 91 of the Constitution.

That Article focuses on political parties. It underscores the fact that political parties are an important instrument of the transformation journey envisaged by the Constitution. However, they are expected to be a particular kind of institution, in radical departure from the pre-2010 era.

The Constitution elaborates basic standards that every political party must adhere to. These include abiding by the principles of governance, promoting the objects and principles of the Constitution, respect and uphold human rights, adhere to the requirements of gender equality and equity.

There are two other aspects of the Constitution that are particularly key based on the country’s history. These relate to the role of political parties in promoting national unity and hence the requirement that political parties be national in character.

The debate that I had with a few colleagues related to whether the above requirement of national character limited political party formation.

This debate is compounded by the fact that the Political Parties Act further requires that to meet the constitutional requirement political parties are required to open and maintain functional offices in a majority of the counties.

The biggest contestation with the above requirement is its limitation on the formation of regional parties. Our discussion raised the question why a group of farmers should not form a party to represent their interests and be based only in a certain part of Kenya.

Similar sentiments were also shared a few weeks ago by another friend of mine whose main argument was that this restriction was against the spirit of devolution.

The critical issue from the above discussion is the recognition that improving the management of political parties and their role in the country is intrinsically tied to improvement of the quality of our democracy.

It is therefore useful that Prof Ghai called out the way Article 91 is being adhered to. The newly appointed acting Registrar of Political Parties has her work cut out. It is important that she leads in efforts to ensure that parties are institutions and not what a colleague refers to as alliances of a few individuals.

As institutions, they should conduct their affairs based on laid-down rules, the members should have a sense of ownership and derive satisfaction from their being associated with the party. The party must also be felt in the governance of the country.

One may argue that every day elected leaders speak on and engage in national issues. While this is true, invariably they share their own personal opinions. Except during election time, when party machinery is robustly rolled out across the country, the voice of many political parties still remains a whimper. Until we can transform political parties into true instruments of governance, it will not be possible to truly change Kenya.

This is because despite the need to separate politics from certain technical politics, the reality of the country is such that politics and politicians will continue having an overbearing influence on development of the country.

There is a lot of work needed to make political parties the kind of institutions that the Constitution desires them to be.