“However…they may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

– George Washington 

In his book, “Political Parties After Political Parties: The Changing Nature and Reality of Political Power in Kenya” (2021), Tony Mochama illustrates how the history of politics and political parties (parties thereafter) in Kenya is a long winding story about how power has a name, face, and ethnicity. Amongst other dynamics, the author reveals that since pre-‘independence’, political organization in Kenya has largely been personality-driven. 

This bears from the enduring extractive political space that Kenya was created to be, the imperial nature of political organization (monarchical, hierarchical, divisive, suppressive), and traditional political systems, many of which were personality-oriented (chiefs, kings, queens). Additionally, and especially during agitation for freedom, political leadership gravitated towards the literate few who acted as intermediaries between the colonisers and their victims. Coupled with the recent ‘ownership’ syndrome – because parties are expensive to run in Kenya – this is the schema from which parties emerged and have operated. 

Appreciating that charisma and rhetoric also play a role, garnished with some semblance of a sound vision, party ‘owners’ are able to paint impressions of robust political outfits. Experience, however, exposes that parties follow the whims of their owner(s) and not vice versa. 

This is the case especially when internal squabbles are fought publicly, where more likely than not, the party eventually adopts the leader’s/owner’s  position, even when evidently dumbfounding. Democratic or ratification processes become mere public relation jamborees, for the regulator’s sake. This still transpires inasmuch as constitutional (Articles 91 and 92), legislative (Political Parties Act 2011 as revised in 2022), and institutional (Register of Political Parties, Political Parties Fund) changes have been made to strengthen parties. 

Despite the above, and the fact that the Constitution provides for independent candidates (Article 85), political parties subsist as the main theatres for politics because the institution acts as the tributary and clearing house of its owner(s). It helps them to optimally ‘monetise’ their brand. Those who want political favours (commercial, career progression, candidature) will associate with party owners because voters gravitate towards the said party owners.  

It is no wonder that when the party leader, who mostly tends to also be a ‘tribal kingpin’ leaves a party, like a deflated bouncing castle, the outfit gradually shrivels into a briefcase operation as voters move with their leader, ratifying the belief that people follow the leader and not the party. The political journey of former premier Raila Odinga, ‘Baba’, best extrapolates this point. 

In 1998, when he struck an accord with the late President Daniel arap Moi to wind up his National Democratic Party in order to merge with Moi’s Kenya African National Union, Raila’s fandom moved with him. So did they months later, when he ditched Moi’s KANU for the Liberal Democratic Party, and into the National Rainbow Coalition. It was the same case when he left the Rainbow Coalition to form the Orange Democratic Movement. The same exact script played out with Raila’s multiple subsequent ‘handshakes’. 

This is why the Gen Z, as they would put it, find political parties ‘sus’ (suspect), especially the big ones. This is a post-modern generation that is not easily fooled by political money and authority, like their parents and elder siblings were. It is a better informed generation, sceptical and not easily politically herded into ethnic enclaves. 

Young Kenyans can see through these patriarchal political ivory towers masquerading as parties. They can discern that these are instruments of political control and manipulation, and not representation. They have seen how members of parliament prioritise their party interests over the people. The relationship with the people ends at the ballot box, after using the people as doormats at the entrance to the political treasure vault managed by the party owners.  

During the drafting of the 2010 Katiba*, I recall one meeting with leaders from different national youth organisations in which political parties were discussed as a hurdle to the young participating in politics. After a series of lamenting voices, a buzz of excitement spread in the room when one of the delegates opined to the rest that hope resided in the proposal for independent candidates. 

“All it takes is for one youth to excite other youth nationally, and these wazees will come with their parties to negotiate with our independent candidate,’’ they said. ‘‘One day, we will surprise these wazees!” 

After June 2024, and with the momentum that the current niko kadi voter registration campaign is picking, with the youth of Kenya, anything is possible. 

*The writer was a member of the Committee of Experts (CoE) on Constitutional Review.