Politicians should know that,days of political party patronage are over

The Kenyan electorate and aspirants for elective posts are relieved of the burden of electing candidates imposed on them by “tribal chiefs” in charge of registered political parties since the country reverted to competitive politics 19 years ago. Voters can now abandon parties in preference to independents in future contests.Direct nominations enjoyed by lawmakers, party officials, their relatives and sycophants will be things of the past as are the imposition of candidates on the electorate in elections. Such nominations made multiparty democracy a mockery.

Victims of cruel decisions by party chiefs celebrated the coming into being of the new constitution that could also make the parties truly political ideological formations, instead of personal properties.

The good news is contained in the clauses whose primary aim is to level the playing field and to open doors for aspirants locked out of contests by party barons year in year out.

According to the supreme law, State Officers that include Members of Parliament and Ministers are banned from holding party posts. In addition, aspirants could in future vie for elections as independents.  Already, one presidential aspirant has declared to stand as independent candidate in the 2012 polls.The lawmakers argue that they are not State Officers and should hence be exempted from the ban. Already, parliamentary party leaders are threatening to breach the sections of the Constitution that could have helped inculcate discipline and internal democracy within registered political entities.

Unlike in the days of yore, many aspirants have been disenfranchised in the advent of multi – party contests by intolerant and dictatorial leaders who have been masquerading as democrats.  In the olden days, with a few exceptions, any number of candidates could be considered for nomination on  the only  party  then, Kenya African National  Union (KANU).

In the run up to the referendum  on the new Constitution, the parties were more interested on Executive  power and ignored other glaring flaws in the document that have suddenly been discovered. Now one can understand why parliamentary party leaders are up in arms against stand taken by the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) that insists on the ratification of the document to the letter.

Other than a joint opposition succeeding to get one of their own to State House in 2002  after two unsuccessful attempts, parties are mere election machines  and neither are they reform tools. Unfortunately, none of the existing parties has a position on any national issue as manifested in their deafening silence over serious matters as the ongoing reforms, the escalating cost of living and runaway inflation. Without party posts, some of the leaders would not have seen inside the legislature and, or become ministers in their lifetime.

In the yesteryear campaigns for the re-introduction of competitive politics in Kenya, reformists of those days accused KANU of dictatorial habits but twenty years later, the so called reformists have proved no better than their political foes in the party that ruled  the country for four decades.

So, the question now at hand is – what is the remarkable difference between KANU and its opponents in the multi party set up?  The answer is little if any.  Only names, symbols and flags distinguish these entities. In short they are nowhere ideologically distinct from the other nor are they qualitatively different  in their socio-economic and political programs;  their manifestoes hold  a telling story about their commonalities.

Fate that befell  the Lancaster House Independence political agreement , later  renamed  Kenya Constitution awaits the new constitution which could suffer another mutilation in the  hands of lawmakers. One can be sure that a flood of proposed changes could fill the  Clerks tray  because many state and public officers find the said clauses unpalatable as they  deny  them  the  comfort of getting away with murder including increasing their salaries and refusal to pay taxes.

The contemplated changes  are meant to suit circumstances as has been the case in the past.  One such amendment contemplated is to be engineered  in restructuring the Political Parties Act.

Good leaders must be good in speech delivery

No dictator in living memory has been a great orator. Dictators cannot be bothered to be of any kind of service to their subjects or mankind in general. Indeed, they hold the populations that they oppress and misrule in total contempt. Distinctive, well-prepared, inspirational, motivational and memorable speech-writing and delivery involve a process of very hard work and commitment.And this holds true whether the orator involved is a preacher giving a sermon or a president marshalling citizens to a national cause.Dictators deliberately deliver speeches that are meant to frighten, scare or even bore people to tears. The idea is reduce their audiences to inaction through lifeless, monotonous and dull soliloquies. 


The 1976 Nobel Literature Laureate, Saul Bellow, hit the nail on the head in his novel Humboldt’s Gift when he observed: “Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the authority to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death”. Great speech writing and delivery are key ingredients of good leadership. And in every great leader, there is a great speaker and a great speechwriter. Leaders should frequently deliver inspirational speeches and not boring prepared statements that make their deliverers drone, bray and send audiences to sleep.“Commanding stasis” is a shameful and inept thing for leaders to do to their audiences, even for half-an-hour. It is a terrible waste of time for everybody involved, from a small roomful of people to stadia teeming with crowds. 


The most likeable, admirable and awesome thing about American President Barack Obama is not the colour of his skin, or that he is the first man with that pigmentation to be the tenant of the White House. No, the amount of melanin in his skin has nothing to do with it. Obama’s truly inspirational and even motivational speech-making is the secret of his success and gravitational pull both in America and in the wider world.Obama moves people far beyond America with his speeches. 


And it is clear that his speeches are well researched, prepared, rehearsed and delivered in a process that involves the most rigorous hard work and commitment. You remember what Obama has said long after he said it. He delivers with conviction, always ending the speeches with a crescendo ‘God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.’ Obama creates a connection with his audience right from the word Go. From his ‘hello everybody’ to the occasional wide smile, to the great quotes and mentioning of names of individuals present, he comes out as a man who is in touch with his audiences.Obama never takes his listeners for granted. Neither do all great leaders. They take the greatest care to make a good, attractive and lasting impression because they believe in what they say, mean what they say and say what they mean. What’s more, they deliver speeches not only for their live audiences but with an eye on posterity and the global audience. Obama comes in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Bacon, Edmund Burke and Caius Julius Caesar.Even if we restrict the list only to African-Americans, Obama still keeps the greatest and most admirable company among orators.He comes in the great tradition of the Rev Henry Highland Garnet, whose heyday was in the 1840s and who is described to this day as having had a “golden throat”. The golden-throated Garnet is most famous for his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” delivered at the National Convention of Coloured Citizens in 1843: “Awake! Awake; millions of voices are calling you! Your dead fathers speak to you from their graves. Heaven, as with a voice of thunder, calls on you to arise from the dust”. Africa too has had its share of world-class speech-makers who moved millions, among them the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah, who were great writers, polemicists and orators even before they entered high office. But this critical genre of leadership is slowly fading away at a time when it is needed most.Remember Obama arrived on the scene in America at the end of the lacklustre George W. Bush decade, with the War on Terror and two hot wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan and amidst the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But he appeared as a beacon light of hope. ‘Yes we Can’ was the clarion call of his political campaigns that revived the hopes of Americans to rediscover the greatness of their nation.

And on the election night after the results were declared Obama sent Americans wild with more inspiration, hope and belief in a new dawn; “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is the place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founding fathers is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

Moving forward, Kenyans will need re-energising by inspirational leaders who will give a message of hope and renewal. Our new constitutional dawn and infrastructural rebirth are both threatened by the phenomenon of a shilling in free fall, looming recession and runaway price hikes inimical to decent living.

The next generation of leaders will be required to move masses into action, give hope and make Kenyans active participants in the nation building process. Such leaders will have to match their words with actions. Kenyans are waiting.

Mswati is bankrupting his kingdom in his expensive lifestyle!

King Mswati III is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch and certainly the only royal who can lay claim to bankrupting his nation in the modern age.
This bling-loving King is one of the reasons why Swaziland has recently had to ask South Africa for a financial bailout as it sinks into insolvency.
According to 2010 figures, Swaziland’s spendthrift King had a net worth, based on investments and land, of $100 million in a country where the GDP is $4.1 million.
This may seem like a lot, and it is in relation to the national GDP, but when you compare it to the $18 billion fortune of the King of Saudi Arabia, or the $15 billion net worth of the Emir of Abu Dhabi, it isn’t.
Because of this, it seems the Swazi King has an inferiority complex in the way he spends his ‘modest’ sum, splurging on unnecessary expenses.
The man loves fast cars, luxury palaces and extravagant parties. In 2008, he reportedly spent $2.5 million on joint celebrations for 40 years of Swaziland’s independence and his 40th birthday.
Mswati III also seeks to look prestigious by over-the-top national spending, such as the $90.86 million dished out on a new international airport.
Shopping sprees

In April 2010, the Swaziland Solidarity Network, a forum which seeks to support democratic institutions in the nation, did a breakdown of the King’s annual spending over the last few years. Here are some of the highlights;

• $229m recurrent budget for the Swazi National Treasury under the King’s office
• $72.3m for royal houses and $72.3m for link roads to the royal palace
• $137.5m for official royal trips by the King
• $7.2m for a Rolls Royce Phantom to his endless list of luxury cars

But it’s not all about the King. We mustn’t forget that the Mswati clan includes 14 wives, as well as a vast number of 'hangers-on' who have a sense of entitlement.
Each of these ladies has a million-dollar palace built for them, BMWs and personal staff, and almost anything else they desire. They also frequently indulge in overseas shopping sprees by private jet.
In 2009, it is reported that five of the King’s wives went on a foreign shopping spree, spending $86.8m in the process. 

Private accounts
Bear in mind that this is happening in a country with the highest HIV/Aids prevalence of any in the world and the lowest life expectancy rate, but no money to deal with these issues.
The King’s personal secretary, Sam Mkhombe, has gone out of his way to clarify that some of the spending is from the Mswati’s private accounts. But the country is suffering from serious financial issues!
Early in 2010, the Swazi Government had ordered 14 per cent cuts across departments to prevent the nation from going bankrupt. Though this strained some departments, such as Education whose ability to provide care for vulnerable children was impaired, it did not include a reduction in expenditure by the Royal family. 

Furthermore, in February this year, the King received a 23 per cent increase in his budget when just about every government department had to cut by 20 per cent.
It appears the King does not concern himself with the suffering of his population, brought on by public expenditure cuts. He has pleaded with South Africa to lend a helping hand with a $1.4billion bailout, but many critics see it as nothing but a front for self aggrandisement.
If anything, the money would probably vanish without producing any long-term benefits for the citizens.