The central organising principle of Kenyan politics is the tribe. For people running for the presidency, for instance, the first order of business is to get your community solidly behind you. With millions of votes in your bag before even a single ballot is cast, you become a formidable candidate.
It does not matter that you have no intelligent policy proposals, no transformational ideas or even personal charisma. This is a dangerous political culture because it rubbishes a key goal of the election process, which is to vet candidates based on their policies, ideas and personal integrity.
The process of vetting ensures that the most qualified man or woman gets the critical job of spearheading a national transformative socio-political agenda. Our system, however, allows for the least qualified, in terms of the criteria cited above, to lead us.
That’s why the Gen Z revolt is so crucial to the future of this country. The youth organised on the basis of a set of principles. They demanded a reengineering of our retrogressive political culture which has allowed a corrupt political class to plunder and mismanage the country.
They dismissed the idea that having one of your own in cabinet equates to development for your community. They called for the dismantling of a system that has underpinned our underdevelopment.
So, it is extremely disturbing to see Rigathi Gachagua, the deputy president of Kenya, still mobilising on the basis of tribe. Gachagua has been trying to become the next Mt Kenya tribal kingpin by pushing retrogressive tribal buttons. In coded language, he says that people from the Mt Kenya region risk being locked out of development should they fail to unite behind him.
He refers to those criticising him as traitors to the tribe. He spreads the falsehood that the Kikuyu are the only community that insults their leaders. He evokes guilt by asking rhetorically, “Have you ever seen the Luo insulting Raila, or the Kalenjin insulting Ruto or the Kamba insulting Kalonzo?” Tribal mobilisation relies on evoking feelings of guilt, fear or a sense of victimhood.
Gachagua is desperate to get the endorsement of ex-president Uhuru Kenyatta, the last, and still presumed, kingpin of Mt Kenya.
This is remarkable given that in his inauguration address he humiliated Mr Kenyatta.
The former district officer in the Kanu dictatorship forgot that the campaign period was over. The inauguration ceremony called for magnanimity and statesmanship. Instead, Gachagua chose the rabble rousing, undignified and wild campaign rhetoric. Afterwards, dizzy with power, he kept blaming everything on the former president.
He is widely believed to have been among the politicians behind the invasion of the former president’s farm and the attack on Raila Odinga’s company offices.
Rigathi Gachagua seems to have slept through the Gen Z revolution. He is like Rip Van Winkle who slept through the American Revolution.
He does not realise that the politics that he, Ruto and Raila embody was overthrown on June 25.
Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator
