Columnists

Kenyan leaders must be held accountable

With 67 per cent vote approval, the 2010 Constitution became the embodiment of our aspiration to reclaim political and economic freedoms that had remained elusive since independence in 1963.

However, public discourse on implementation of the Constitution has seemingly given more credence to political freedoms than economic. This difference is attributable to the dominance of this discourse by an audible minority view.

The disciples of economic freedom cannot match the minority rhetorical commentaries in favour of political freedom.

The minority view that encompasses some legal fraternity including politicians and social activists invented and mastered the grammar of protest, which continue to give them a comparative advantage.

Consequently, the economic freedom has been relegated to second best status notwithstanding its attribute as the bedrock of the consolidation of democracy.

The economic definition of democracy is a competitive government that serves the interest of the citizens. In our representative democracy the sovereign power belongs to Kenyans who may exercise it directly or indirectly through representation.

Under the tenets of democracy, the citizens as principals delegate some of the sovereign power to government as an agent in order to maximize their welfare collectively. Such delegation presupposes citizens’ knowledge of their interests as stipulated in the constitution.

The Achilles’ heel of Kenya’s young democracy is its citizens’ inability to effectively monitor the behaviour of their elected representatives.

This assertion is supported by the divergence of interests between the citizens and their elected representatives on a host of importance policy matters. A case in point is the implementation of the devolution.

While devolution enjoys overwhelming public support, its implementation has unfortunately sparked insatiable recurrent spending contrary to public interest.

Such spending undermines and threatens the publically popular development agenda and survival of devolution respectively as typified by the ongoing political quagmire in Makueni County.

The citizens’ perpetual failure to hold their government accountable is attributable to high poverty levels, ignorance and glaringly income disparities among other factors.

Inferably high poverty rates and ignorance have rendered half of Kenya’s electorate susceptible to political manipulation.

Admittedly this is a long, endemic structural problem that renders any democracy to be work in progress. Evidently Western democracies have relatively resolved this problem by economically empowering their citizens.

These countries have economically independent middle class that drive the politics.

To overcome this vertical accountability problem, we need a long-term strategy. Such strategy calls for the pursuit of policies that promotes of economic freedom. Precisely, just like successful democracy, economic freedom should drive our politics.

By so doing, we will replace ethnically driven interests that have been retrogressive with a common interest based on economics.

A guarantee of economic freedom for all Kenyans would incentivise them to hold their elected representatives accountable and reduce political manipulation.

In conclusion, the guiding principle to toward the consolidation of our young democracy rests on the pursuit of economic freedom. Economically independent citizens can effectively fight for their political rights.

Prof Kieyah is a principal policy analyst at KIPPRA. Views expressed in this article are personal.