Kenyans! We will be having booklets at the ballot. I’ve seen a gazette notice on the gazetted independent candidates. I’ve only looked at presidential. I haven’t even looked at the rest. It’s too much. They should come up with some criteria to chuck people. We can’t have almost 50 presidential candidate kwa ballot.
Just because the democratic process and the constitution allow any citizen of sound mind to run doesn’t mean we should reduce the office of President to a joke. It’s ridiculous, impractical, inconveniencing, and totally inefficient to have to elect a president from such a crowd. Some of the names have never been heard. How will anyone elect a person who is unknown to them, and why? It’s as though the idea is only to have Ran for President in one’s profile. I think that a candidate for such a serious office should not be independent. Ideally he/she ought to belong to a party with a national outlook. But that can only happen at a different time under a different law.
I agreed with you until that point. Independents have a right to run. Political parties promote bad leadership. The only solution is to increase the threshold. Deposit KSH 50,000,000 with IEBC to get the form or get 1,000,000 signatures. In Nigeria, the APC Party will only give a form to someone who has deposited 100,000,000 Naira (About 30M). This is to kick out jokers from the party nomination process.
The problem is that our party manifestos are largely similar, therefore there is nothing different about what each party stands for. Politicians simply use them as vehicles to get them the seats they want. Mature democracies don’t have so many parties. The thing about a well-grounded party is that it should carry and express the wishes and vision of its members. Perhaps it would be good to polish our party manifestos to make them attractive and accomodating, so that individuals aspiring for various seats can want to join them.
Focusing so much on depositing huge sums of money for independents means the seat is reserved for the rich, therefore the measure of worthiness shifts from ability and integrity, to wealth. I think that defeats the purpose, because then an unpopular and unscrupulous candidate who can pay is what the people will get, like it or not. As long as a wealthy person is able to rally cronies to lobby and fund his/her campaigns, then that person gets the seat, and Wanjiku continues to lament that the leadership is out of touch with the people. If parties had a vision for the nation, then they would have both the power and moral legitimacy to nominate the right candidates by popular initiative, (those who have been tried and endorsed from their activities in the party) and they wouldn’t be too many. After all, what is the purpose of running independently if you do not carry the aspirations of the millions of people you should serve if elected–just to take advantage of the fact that it’s your right?