KENYA SOCIALIST
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA)
Monday 30th June 2003
NARC GOVERNMENT FACING ZERO POLITICAL OPPOSITION
By Okoth Osewe
Since the National
Rainbow Coalition (Narc) came to power six months ago, organized opposition
politics in Kenya has fizzled out. The former ruling Kenyan African National
Union (KANU) party which was defeated after 39 years in power, is the “official
opposition”. In reality, KANU is in no position to oppose the new Narc
government because majority of top KANU politicians including its aging
Chairman, former President Daniel arap Moi, are in a permanent State of
panic because of possible prosecution for corruption, human rights violations,
embezzlement of public funds, political assassinations and other crimes
that the party committed during its brutal reign.
Moi has been named in a major corruption scandal that is currently
under public inquiry while his former confidant Mr. Nicholas Biwott is preparing
to defend himself before a Parliamentary Commission that was set up by
Narc to investigate the 1990 murder of former Minister for Foreign Affairs
and International Cooperation, Dr. Robert Ouko in February 1990.
There is no opposition because fourteen Parties that used to oppose
the KANU dictatorship are in power under the Narc Coalition. At the
moment, the general political mood in the country is not accommodative
to outright political opposition of the Narc regime because many voters
believe that Narc has been in power for a very short period and that the
new government should be given time to deliver. Kenyans are satisfied with
Narc for having dislodged KANU from power and active opposition to a government
that has just been elected after 39 years of brutal dictatorship does not
carry a lot of appeal.
Traditionally, opposition to the Moi dictatorship was championed by
members of the Luo, the Luhya and Kikuyu ethnic groups. Currently, the
country has a Kikuyu President while the Luo, which is the second largest
tribe in the country after Kikuyus and which has been in the opposition
since the colonial revolution in 1963, are less interested in opposing
the current government. This is because Mr. Raila Odinga, the undisputed
Luo leader, is on the brink of landing the high profile post of Prime Minister
should the colonial Constitution be reviewed according to Narc election
pledges. The Luo expect that once Odinga becomes the country’s first Prime
Minister, he will be at a better position to vie for the post of President
in the 2007 election, a post which no Luo has ever held since the end of
British colonial rule. The Luo strategy is based on the community sticking
with the government if plans to catapult Raila to the Presidency are
to succeed.
The Luhya, the third largest tribe which could have opposed the government,
has one of their own as the country’s Vice President in the person of Mr.
Michael Kijana Wamalwa. After holding the position of Vice President, the
calculation by the Luhyas is that Mr. Wamalwa will be able to vie for the
Presidency come the 2007 election and that there is no better way of preparing
for this period than supporting the ruling Coalition and "working from within"
the government. The Luhya are discussing an Alliance with the Luo so that
come 2007, Wamalwa should should vie for the Presidency with Odinga settling
for the post of Prime Minister. In the circumstances, the two ethnic groups
are unlikely to organise a new opposition to Narc because they need to be
in the government if their schemes are to work out.
Significant measures by Narc have reinforced illusions that
bigger changes are on the way
During the six months that Narc has been in power, Commissions have
been formed to deal with past economic and political crimes. The anti corruption
authority is at work, Constitutional review process that has been stuck
for two decades is rumbling on, Moi's torture chambers have been opened to
the public and a Truth and Justice Commission Task force has been launched.
New national slogans have been coined, prisoners have been released, economic
blue prints circulated, contacts have been made with the IMF and World Bank
which has just released Ksh 8 billion in aid while the free primary education
program is lurching on with the support of Western donors. Even plots that
were grabbed by Moi's cronies have been repossesed as the government embarked
on marginal repaire of roads to demonstrate that change has come. These
measures have further reinforced illusions that more drastic changes are
on the way and that what the government needs is time.
What has not happened is that retrenched workers have not been reinstated
while hundreds of fresh workers have also lost their jobs without government
intervention. There is no opposition to question the government's dance
with the IMF and World Bank, two Institutions which are known Internationally
as imperialist economic weapons whose programs are designed to promote exploitation
of resources and poverty in the ex-colonial world. Re-nationalization
of enterprises that were privatized during the Moi dictatorship is
not an issue for the Narc government because this could brush imperialism
on the wrong side. In a recent trip to London, Wamalwa asserted to
British businessmen that privatizations in Kenya are on track.
Total silence has enveloped the fate of half a million jobs per year
that were promised by Narc while no one is questioning recommendations
for privatization of more State bodies under IMF/World Bank supervision.
Huge opposition to MP's half a million salaries that the legislators awarded
themselves despite the country's deep economic crisis could not be translated
into street protest because of the existing vacuum in the opposition. Tons
of sugar allegedly imported by connected MPs have killed the local sugar
industry but following the death of opposition, the matter has only been
raised in Parliament without any organised protests. The capitalist, pro-imperialist
character of the Narc government is not being question by even the supposedly
most informed critics.
Since the defeat of KANU, expectations of great political changes have
pacified Kenyans and almost depoliticized the population. Although opportunities
for protests exists, organized anti-government demonstrations have waned
because of the thinking that the country is back on the road to recovery and,
according to President Kibaki, what is needed now is a "working nation". This
empty message is against a backdrop of 11 million unemployed Kenyans and
constant retrenchments occasioned by IMF and World Bank programs. In its
"100 days in power" speech, President Kibaki boasted that Narc had generated
7,000 jobs. At this rate, the maximum Kenyans can expect is 28,000 jobs per
year, a figure that falls far much below the 500,000 jobs Narc promised to
deliver per year if it assumes power. Fuel, electricity and telephone charges
have gone up without any anti-government mobilizations. In certain areas of
Kenya, famine is looming. The World Food Program has warned that over 2000
Kenyans are facing starvation because of poor crop harvests while in certain
areas, people are already starving.
Vacuum in opposition may be filled by new opportunists if the
Kenyan Left fails to organize
The zero opposition in Kenyan politics has only been interrupted by
isolated critical voices from individuals writing in the local media and
the Internet. But so far, there has been no organized attempt to question
how Narc will transform the lives of millions of Kenyans on a capitalist
basis. Former Left wing critics who have transformed their political ideologies
to fit into the system are either in the government or heading Non Governmental
Organizations mainly funded by Western imperialism. Although these personalities
understand Narc's political dilemma, they are not in a position to influence
a political line away from capitalism because they have been rehabilitated
into the system. The role they are playing at the moment is to hold back the
tide of the anti-imperialist struggle by driving government policy along imperialist
friendly lines as a matter of survival.
For these breed of leaders, Socialism did not just collapse in the former
Soviet Union. It is also a dead idea whose proponents are completely out
of touch with political realities in Kenya, Africa and the world. Majority
of these "radicals" had their Socialist thinking deeply rooted in the Stalinist
and Maoist traditions and when Stalinism collapsed in the early 90s, majority
of those who did not understand the process revised their positions before
joining hands with the radical bourgeoisie who were by then in the fore-front
in the struggle for democratic rights and whose major slogan took the shape
of re-introduction of political pluralism. When Kenya became a multi-party
state in 1990, politicians who had been on the left abandoned the ideological
struggle to fit themselves into the emergent opposition parties from where
they began a new struggle for Parliamentary positions. Many of these former
"firebrands" are now holding Cabinet and other top posts after joining the
liberal bandwagon that united to defeat KANU under the National Rainbow
Coalition. This partly explains why Narc faces no opposition at the moment.
While it is significant that the defeat of the KANU dictatorship advanced
the struggle for democracy in Kenya and opened up new avenues through which
the anti capitalist struggle could be reorganized, the Narc administration,
which has in its ranks former political prisoners and detainees who once
raised the specter of Socialism in Kenya and paid for it by being jailed
or forced into exile, has embraced the market system. Following the acceptance
of a number of Narc's "Leftist" leaders into the capitalist fold,
any organised Socialist agitation or struggle will have to begin from scratch
with the biggest task being to convince Kenyans that the crisis ridden capitalist
system of government that Narc inherited from KANU will not deliver jobs,
decent houses, free medical care and other social services because the system
is built in a way that its major beneficiaries are the rich. It is a system
that supports a million Kenyan shillings for MPs monthly salaries while
at the same time taking away jobs from poor workers through unacceptable
retrenchment programs supported by IMF and World Bank.
In as much as the new Narc administration requires the goodwill and
support of Kenyans, it is important that Narc's political limitations be
pointed out as the search for solutions to the crisis in Kenya continues.
Our position is that the system needs to be questioned. Since “radicals”
are now in power, the impending failure of Narc to deliver will not be
understood properly unless the weaknesses of the capitalist system which
Narc inherited from KANU are exposed and an alternative to the system put
forward. Using the democratic gains that have been realised through Narc's
power take-over, remnants of the Kenyan left need to organise actively
for an ideological opposition because the capitalist policies of Narc needs
to be confronted with the ideas of revolutionary socialism. The vacuum in
the opposition will most likely be filled by new opportunists from the liberal
wing if the Kenyan Left does not organize to intervene in the situation.
Published by Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance
(KSDA)
email: harakatips@hotmail.com
Home