Kenya finds itself in a turbulent period, less than a year since the contested 2022 general election that saw the Kenya Kwanza government take over the reins of power. The country is grappling with various issues among them, the high cost of living, a dissatisfied opposition that has insisted on leading anti-government protests seeking electoral accountability, the introduction of a controversial finance bill that has triggered resistance from the people and a glaring attempt by the Kenya Kwanza government to claw back on the constitutional rights and freedoms achieved over the years, bringing back the rule by an iron fist as was with the era of the Moi-KANU dictatorship. While such a crisis is not new in Kenya, we have observed an emerging desire by the common mwananchi to break away from the political rhetoric and elite interests to organically articulate their bread-and-butter issues away from the compromised representatives who have betrayed their interests. The opposition has been accused of appropriating the issues of the citizens and packaging them for their own political interests that exclude the will and voice of the people. The media on the other hand, have insisted on driving a narrative that conjoins the resistance of the people against an oppressive, dictatorial government with that of a populist opposition that lacks clarity on what the priorities of the Kenyan populace are at the moment. The people however seem to be pushing back and organizing their own agency to take their power back despite the fact that there is yet to emerge a leadership that would drive the peoples’ agenda away from the current tainted lot. This situation eloquently capturing the words of Antonio Gramsci, “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear,”
That Kenya is in dire need of an alternative system of governance is in no doubt. The promulgation of the new constitution in 2010 was a new dawn, the old ways of governance that excluded the people from power were no longer tenable. The results of this new dispensation now unravelling, with the people slowly acquainting themselves with a new progressive order where their rights and voice matter and are getting over the trauma of fear and intimidation that they had been subjected to since independence. A new crop of leadership and change of attitude is emerging especially among the youth who have been organizing the communities in social movements and progressive political parties advancing the conversation from civic to political education. In the last general election, 8 million people who are registered voters did not participate in the elections and a post-election evaluation revealed that the biggest reason for snubbing the ballot box was a dwindling confidence in not only the electoral process but also in the crop of leaders that are thriving in the political ecosystem. This was a huge political statement of the masses refusing to participate in political trickery and electoral processes that lack integrity and that seem to degenerate with every passing cycle. The question that emerges therefore is, why the wokeness and rising political consciousness is yet to translate to a more pro-people, ideologically driven governance. Are the social movements and progressive members of the civil society answering the important question of what is to be done?
The political crisis at hand presents a very strategic opportunity for a pro-people leadership to emerge and steer the national conversations in an ideological and people-centred direction. In the event that the opposition is successful in getting audience with the government, as it has been the case before, chances are they will cut political deals that only fit their agenda and ditch the peoples’ cause which they hitherto piggybacked on. Who then will pick the struggle of the people and offer leadership? The social movements have done a great service in engaging the people about their rights and agency, they however remain stuck at the level of advocacy and agitation that has clearly articulated issues of accountability, social injustice and good governance but have failed to capture the imagination of the people on what liberation would look like and how to get there. This can be attributed to deliberate NGO-nisation of social movements that seem to contain these movements around reforms through their conditional and highly programmed funding. If Kenya is to witness a new robust and radical leadership that understands the masses and represents their interest, those organizing for power in the progressive corners must break away from the illusion of a funded revolution and base their support for resources and inspiration on the people and not the NGO’s. Beyond the level of exciting the masses for change, the leaders in the social movements must walk the talk and offer leadership against the status quo.
The issues that are currently manifesting in the streets are the morbid symptoms of a system of governance that is no longer sustainable under the new constitution. The transition had to be progressive as the people had not been previously exposed to a pro-people rights-based approach system that placed them at the core. Thirteen years down the line, the enjoyment of rights and freedoms has opened up their imagination to the possibility of a socially just Nation. There is basic understanding that people must remain vigilant against the regression to dictatorial rule and a recognition that the current self-proclaimed progressive leaders, especially in the opposition, are in reality dealers in their own interests. The quagmire therefore is who will now lead the people that are seeing the light? Are the social movements, beyond their revolutionary chants and songs, up to the task of leading a revolution? Do the progressives leaning to the left understand the gravity of the moment and the importance of ceasing it?
The conditions are ripe for Kenya to completely breakaway from the post-colonial set up that sought to advance the subjugation of the masses using state machinery and establish a new order that vehemently rejects any agenda that is not for the people and by the people. Majority of the masses have lost faith in the system of personality cults and narratives that are populist and short term but they seek an alternative leadership that will complete the transition, concluding the journey of reforms the multi-party struggle hoped to achieve and ushering in the new frontier that will escalate the struggle from reforms to a revolution. The struggle for this generation has strongly emerged as the economic struggle but it will be impossible to wage this struggle if the country lost on the gains it has so far made by the previous generation. The task ahead therefore is to consolidate the gains and integrate the generational struggles for continuity even as a new leadership emerges. The answer to the current crisis is for this generation organizing in social movements and political parties to rise up to the occasion, fill the vacuum that the interregnum exposes and offer leadership. The old is dying and we cannot thrive in the period of monsters, the time has come to lead the revolution.
*Njoki Gachanja is a political and social justice activist and coordinates Githurai Social Justice Center.
