{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Dirty politics awaits you, down in Kenya's counties - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

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Dirty politics awaits you, down in Kenya's counties - Comment

Dirty politics? The question came to mind after I read the headline on the front page of Kenya's Standardnewspaper on September 29: "Return of Dirty Politics."

I was intrigued. I got a copy to find out what on earth had happened. Now, we Ugandans have long believed, on the basis of a statement made by former president Milton Obote in a moment of candour, based on some of the terrible things that happened while he was in power, that "politics is a dirty game."

In many ways this belief accounts for why very few Ugandans who think of themselves as well brought up and decent, join politics or want their offspring to do so.

By extension, it explains why the political arena is dominated by unsavoury characters, the greedy, the selfish and self-aggrandising, backstabbers and the mean-spirited.

You only need to follow what goes on inside political parties to appreciate this. Of late, the shenanigans within the ruling National Resistance Movement have confirmed for the umpteenth time, that Obote knew what he was talking about.

As I got deeper into the story in theStandard, I discovered that the dirty politics it was sounding the alarm about was linked to political reforms that, not too long ago, all Kenyans, or at least the majority, were truly thrilled about. I am talking about devolution.

After many years in which most decisions affecting the lives of ordinary Kenyans up and down the country were made in Nairobi and handed down to local representatives of the central government, and then applied willy-nilly, Kenya's post-2007 Constitution dispersed some powers to newly created counties.

The happiness Kenyans felt at this development has to some extent been vindicated. A completely unscientific straw poll I conducted a few days ago among well-informed contacts reveals that devolution has had a significantly positive impact on the quality of public administration in the country.

One in-depth response to my query was particularly informative. According to the source that I am not naming, many good things have happened.

One is the dispersal of financial resources. Today over 15 per cent of government revenue goes to the 47 counties and is divided up equitably according to criteria that include levels of poverty, population size, and land area. Among other things, this money has made it possible for each county administration to do those things that make most sense to local people, in line with their needs and aspirations.

This is a complete departure from the past where arbitrary decisions by the national government perpetuated regional inequality by, for example, giving resources to some regions and starving others for what my informants identified as "political reasons." The new Constitution rules out this selective marginalisation of some taxpayers and pampering of others.

Perhaps even more significant is what the experts call grassroots or bottom-up demand for accountability. For us lay people, that means ordinary citizens asking awkward questions of their leaders, about all sorts of things, including broken promises.

Apparently this is now happening on a large scale, with some exceptions here and there, as "unprecedented development projects," mainly in the form of rural infrastructure, are rolled out. Reports reveal that people in some areas that, 50 years on from Independence, had never seen a tarmac road, are now also "beginning to feel Kenyan."

This, however, is not the whole story, and here is where we get into the realm of "dirty politics." There are many stories of corruption and "the whole culture of eating" with which national-level politics has long been associated.

Local leaders are said to be dipping their fingers into the pie the central government is sending down, with little restraint, even as some analysts make big claims about "bottom-up accountability."

But this was not what the Standard was alarmed about. Rather, it was the resurgence of political intolerance that is now generally associated with the pre-2003 period, and which was characterised by "threats, open violence and generous use of foul language against opponents."

The paper went on to highlight what it called "a high stakes game of violent politics with shades of blackmail, political zoning, outright incitement and belligerence and even gunfights and scuffles."

During the same week, media had reported various outbreaks of violence involving Members of County Assemblies, otherwise known as MCAs, shooting at each other and maiming each other with sticks and whatever else they could lay their hands on, over arguments that had nothing to do with improving the lives of local people.

Some have gone as far as proposing that county administrations provide cars for their spouses while others, now flush with cash, courtesy of generous emoluments, have been asking for guns to protect themselves, presumably from the unwashed masses that elected them. Dirty politics? You bet.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: fgmutebi@yahoo.com

Dirty politics awaits you, down in Kenya's counties - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

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