Democracy is coming to Kenya: It does not really matter who is next president

Trends are pointing out that this year’s election will be peaceful judging from how Kenyans and the IEBC have handled disputed nomination so far. But let us celebrate this new trend with caution as we jointly work towards making this year’s election peaceful. 

The entire electoral process is a nail-biting experience for everyone. It comes with a lot of euphoria and a lot of anticipation. It pushes citizens, tourists, refugees and investors to the cliff-edge.

Well, I have good news. Never had I been more optimistic than this time round, keenly watching what is happening in Kenya from the diaspora, that the March election will be something to smile about.

Election in Kenya will soon be history just like it has been in countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Lesotho, Egypt, Burkina Faso, and Angola. The interesting thing about these African countries is that they have all conducted peaceful elections. 

Is there likelihood that history is treating African countries kindly regarding elections? Is Kenya likely to benefit from this wind of change blowing across Africa from the four corners of the continent?

It is a well-established fact that the journey to Kenya’s democratic transformation has involved blood, sweat and tears. All the sacrifice Kenyans have made should not go to waste. Like a wounded lion, it’s time for the country to win the battle – which I am convinced it will – due to her warrior-like strategies

One important strategy Kenya has used, in her quest for nationhood, is that of imbibing the character of our fore-fathers who believed that Kenyans work best when they are free, a conviction that led to the birth of the new constitution – the second liberation.

The constitution has guaranteed all Kenyan citizens, tourists, refugees and investors unalienable rights, justice and fair play. But there is a third liberation awaiting – economic liberation. The time is perfect for Kenyans to wake up, smell the coffee and take advantage of the impressive economic recovery today compared to where the country was after the last disputed election.

Improved infrastructure, transport and communication in the country means a favorable environment has been created for entrepreneurship. Decentralization of resources and power gives room for development at the grassroots level and above all, a functional judiciary means disputes, including electoral disputes, can be confidently settled in courts in a civilized manner.

Democracy is coming to Kenya and it does not really matter who is next president. Since there is a new constitution, all that is needed now is a president who will safeguard it and be a champion of the third liberation by forging sober trading partnerships with other African countries to fast track Kenya towards achieving vision 2030.

Kenyans have reasons to be optimistic, the economic growth is projected at an average of 4.7 percent this year, interest rates have been lowered by the Central Bank, there is a surge in agricultural output, oil and other minerals are being exploited, Konza techno-city has just been unveiled, the local soccer premier league is increasing its popularity in Africa, tourists are still visiting despite Alshabaab threats and Mau-Mau fighters are almost being compensated. This is a true African renaissance that should not be obliterated by the March elections.

Why announcing winner of March election is a twin burden

There is no doubt that the upcoming March 2013 elections will be a watershed in the history of Kenya’s political-economy. This is why the media ought to prepare thoroughly for accurate and objective coverage.

It is well known that elections are good news for the media anywhere in the world by virtue of the many competing interests that the media is simply spoilt for choices regarding what to report. However, history has revealed that reporting elections in Africa should be done with caution to avoid electoral chaos.

I need not remind you of what happened in 2007 shortly after the national media televised Samuel Kivuitu announcing results of a disputed poll under pressure. This should not be the case in March this year. Amidst the election euphoria, hyped by the local and international media, there are possibilities of meddling with the message. 

Should the media be responsible for announcing unofficial election results in different polling stations in real time? My conviction is that the burden of announcing electoral results should rest with the Interim Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC). However, the media shoulders some of it since it ought to broadcast preliminary results from different polling stations in the spirit of electoral transparency – It is a twin burden.

In established democracies like the USA, the media has been accurately projecting winners and losers through unofficial results that stream live in newsrooms from various national polling stations, therefore, giving the process credibility. 

Projection is possible in the USA because the media invests highly in technology. Besides that, there is minimum ideological polarization among competing political parties and above all, journalists are institutionalized to recognize the importance of national elections. They are guided by the spirit of patriotism that ensures they maintain high levels of professionalism when reporting electoral issues.

The Kenyan scenario is different mainly due to multiple ‘ideological’ polarizations among political parties, and perhaps even lack of ideology, which makes it difficult for the electorate to distinguish competing political aspirants beyond their personalities. 

This reality makes it tricky for the Kenyan media to track politics based on issues by virtue of the many non-issues competing for attention. Therefore, the media tends to focus on political personalities and in the process, risks the danger of ethnic arithmetic. So how should the Kenyan media cover the upcoming elections? 

It must take the patriotic lead in order to set the agenda for the international media. This means that if it is to release preliminary unofficial results of the election, then it should uphold professionalism to ensure its numbers dovetail with those of the IEBC. The local media and the IEBC must work in tandem to ensure electoral news is treated carefully. This demands a radical departure from “if it bleeds it leads” western journalistic mentality. 

Televising the elections live might be good since voting often put people under pressure to know results. This is why BVR kits should not be taken for granted. They can speed up efforts to release results from multiple polling stations nationally to help wanainchi offload anticipation pressures. Is the local media well prepared for this? 

Well, the IEBC has been under pressure to publicly state how well prepared it is to conduct the upcoming elections. Our media should be subjected to the same measure of scrutiny. It must begin telling us how it will ensure the upcoming elections are successful.

Let us glocalize our media for moral progress

The fact that morality is a product of social construction is well established that I don’t intend to lecture Kenyans on. A quick example can be found in Prof. Greenfeld’s excellent essay titled “Modernity and the Mind” that seeks to explain the Russian revolution inspired by the ‘envy’ of modern nations in the West, particularly, France. 

The ‘envy’ was captured by Russian dramatists Dennis Fonvizin, who after visiting France, could not help but conclude that he saw more bad things happening than good ones and many bad people than good. The same rationale seems to apply everywhere in the world. Having seen France, Fonvizin saw no reason to adopt the Western model but surely envied it. In the essay, Greenfeld concludes that what is actually a virtue in France is, most likely, a vice in England. Is modernity the anti-thesis of morality?

Morality and the new normal

Can one therefore argue that immorality is a result of the envy of foreign cultures that paves way for cultural assimilation and subsequent cultural imperialism? Or is immorality simply self-inherent in those that play God, are in the business of ‘othering’ and are convinced that their ideas of humanity and creativity are incontestably rich for uncritical adoption by emerging others? 

Who is responsible for the cultural collapse in Kenya? The obvious culprit is the media but it is not that simple. Immorality has been a thorn in our flesh even before the advent of mass media. But can we trust our ‘foreign’ media to be ‘custodians’ of morality now that immorality is becoming the new normal? If you don’t agree with the latter, then you have not listened to Jaguar’s lamentations in the local hit song Kigeugeu that describes all sorts of immoralities perpetrated by politicians, doctors, wives, constructors and drivers.

Law and order

I am convinced that if an Englishman or woman would visit France, then he or she would be ‘happy’ with the ‘virtues’ in France even though some of them might be ‘vices’ back in England due to law and order. Would the same persons find the same measure of happiness with the ‘virtues’ in Kenya that would compel them to visit again? If not, can the law really be our antidote to immorality given Kenya’s dependence on tourism? 

The answer is complicated and requires a whole thesis. However, history has proven that law and order can be used to tame the reptilian brain of deviant characters in the society. When this is well done, it helps shape moral behavior. That is why liberal Western societies believe in freedom but within the confines of law and order. Without the latter, which entails rewards and punishment in social learning theories, then the society can be a jungle.

Africanizing modernity

Instead of importing foreign programmes, the media should support the production of local content that reflects the realities in Kenya. The current local edutainment programmes such as Tahidi High, Machachari, Inspekta Mwala, Heartlines, The legendary Vioja Mhakaman and Vitimbi, Papa Shirandula, Waridi and others should be supported since they can influence and shape behavior in the country positively. 

The most successful evidence of the role of local edutainment initiatives in shaping societal morals is found in South Africa where locally produced content has helped address challenges like HIV/AIDS, crime and poverty.  However, this calls for thorough investments beyond the media to include liberal arts educational training that would Africanize modernity.

Newtown shooting is business unusual in Hollywood

The recent terrifying event in Newtown, United States where a gun man killed 27 people among them 20 children has raised questions on gun control laws where the President has called for change. Apart from that, the incident has also subtly introduced debates about television violence where interestingly, following the shooting, Hollywood, the greatest entertainment machine in the world, has employed self-censorship (business unusual) of violent content fearing that it could be insensitive with the news still fresh in the minds of audiences.

Cable networks like HBO, TLC and NBC either postponed or cancelled airing programmes with violent content. The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York even canceled the screening of Tom Cruise's violent new movie, “Jack Reacher”. The argument being that, in the wake of national tragedies, entertainment companies in the US ritualistically assess the content of their programming to ensure it is not offensive.

However, the Newtown incident is a new challenge to media scholarship in the United States which dates back to the early theories of media effects that centered on whether or not, in deed, television causes violence. The latter position was dismissed in audience research giving too much credit to the intelligence of the audience as opposed to the power of media content to influence audiences. Media scholars must now go back to the theoretical drawing board to methodologically investigate various hypotheses regarding the validity of claims held about the relationship between television and violence in the society. 

Luckily, with the advent of new media, there are new ways of investigating media, particularly television, content for violence which, traditionally, has been centered on audiences, the technology itself and content. For example, the three dimensions in new media such as interactivity, demassification and asynchroneity can be used by scholars to follow-up individual audiences as opposed to mass audiences (demassification) to examine how they interact with technology such as cable networks and utilize programming (asynchroneity) and the potential effects of such habits. It will be interesting to see whether the ‘time worn’ bullet theory will be given a new lease of life in the new hypotheses that will emerge and possibly new media theories in the wake of the Newtown event.

For now, Hollywood’s response to the shooting largely supports the premise that television does influence the audience and its content can sometimes be offensive. Violent programming has a significant effect on the audiences and may be the sources of societal violence as evidenced in the July 20 2012 Aurora movie theater mass shooting in Colorado US during a mid-night screening of the movie “The Dark  Night Rises”. Even though the suspect was being examined for mental illness, he confessed to have wanted to kill people and law enforcers found a Batman mask in his apartment. Batman is a fictional comic book and 1986 character of the television series “The Dark Nights Returns”.

The current events in the US and the Middle-East are restructuring the globe

Here in the US what seems to remind you that Americans are going for elections in November this year is the media, apart from the few cars pasted with campaign stickers like “Osama is Dead General Motors is Alive” and “Vote Republican, Since Everyone Can Never be on Welfare” representing both the Obama and Romney campaigns respectively.

The truth is, American electoral politics is actually beyond maturity even though it still conceals discourses of race and prejudice regarding questions of the welfare of minorities and the poor. The fascinating thing about American campaigns is the manner in which democrats and republicans work tirelessly to convince the electorate about their policies. Among the many competing policy issues, right now it seems the question is about who has a better economic plan that will restore America’s and thus global economy to a clear path of consistent growth. Another issue is regarding America’s foreign policy courtesy of September 11 terrorist attacks and anti-American sentiments in the Middle East and elsewhere. Electoral questions concern who has the gravitas to be the powerful man in the World today.

But where do US electorates learn all the electoral politics. The point is, American media has been the arena in which conflicting interests between democrats and republicans play out. If you pay attention to the media coverage of rival political contenders, both sides are equally convincing as it played out in the just concluded national conventions. Millions of dollars are spent on “approving” political messages in the mainstream media as campaigns get ‘dirty’. It takes little effort to see how CNN is pro-democrats or liberals while Fox News is pro-republicans or conservatives and sometimes appears to be anti-Obama.

The underlying reality is the fact that Obama and Romney are faced with new and complex challenges that never faced any of their predecessors in the history of American history. For example, the pressure of assuring Israel their full support regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions with Israel threatening to attack Iran, stabilizing the current regime in Afghanistan, where American soldier operating alongside their Afghan counterparts are killed by the latter, and the current mess in the entire middle east. That is, the conflict in Syria and anti-American demonstrations in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Yemen, even as close to home as possible, in Sudan. 

Out of this conflict zones, Egypt is particularly important because of the peace treaty the country made with Israel on the 28^th of March 1979 in Washington DC, following the prolonged Arab-Israeli war under the leadership of Anwar Sadat, witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The treaty was signed for the sake of stability in the middle-East which is also now under threat. In fact, America has been giving Egypt financial and other forms of assistance since then and was instrumental for regime change in Libya. New questions are arising in the political stage in the US on whether the recent events in Egypt would jeopardize US relations with the country. These are issues that clearly pose a huge new foreign policy challenge to the current American presidency. But what is the crust of this new challenge then?

Out of the many challenges America faces in the modern world today, the most salient one is ‘terrorism’ which has become a huge industry. Every day billions of dollars are spent on intelligence and technology in the hope of defeating terrorism. America is currently flying Drones in parts of the world that, in their view, harbor terrorists. They sent a couple of them to Libya after an attack of their embassy in Benghazi that left their Ambassador and three others dead. The truth is, counter terrorism efforts cannot materialize without the support of local governments. Events unfolding in Libya, Tunisia and the entire Arab world are perhaps the beginning of the last experiments of the competence of the regimes in that region to fully co-operate in the collective and collaborative global effort of ‘fighting terrorism’ to restore peace and security. 

The critical point is that ordinary civilians irrespective of  race, nationality, gender or religion have often risked being victims of terror and therefore  both the West and the Arab world must accept the reality that peace cannot be realized through any form of violence, whether it involves physical conflict or inflammatory language. There should always be an opportunity for dialogue as means of resolving conflicts. The other point is that even as we celebrate freedom of expression, it should be exercised with utmost responsibility. These are tough questions currently hot in the US campaign trails.

You see, here in America, it really does not matter much who is in White House, whether it’s the democrats or the republicans. The concern is the value of their civilization. The truth is, Americans believe in liberty and democracy which they are convinced is the best system if humanity is to explore its full potential, thus, they are determined to export such values. The tricky question is the extent in which they will achieve this through consent and the role of ally states therein.

Fredrick Ogenga is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Advancement of Social Sciences (Boston University)