In mature political democracies, membership of parties is based on ideology. Movement from one party to another is consequently a very big deal.
In our context though one can move from one party to another and back in less than a week. This was witnessed during this period.
Such movements are rarely based on conviction. Instead they are done out of temporary convenience.
Party primaries have been going on in earnest this past week. The elections season is surely with us. This process, though critical in the electoral process, always demonstrates the journey our democratic process has to travel.
In 2007, The Kriegler Commission was critical of the manner in which our parties were organised and conducted their nominations, pointing out that they did not meet the democratic standards of credible nominations.
Since then the country has made several strides in efforts to improve the conduct of party primaries.
In the changes to the election laws in 2016, a lot of effort was placed on regulating the conduct of party primaries.
The law required that these nominations be undertaken based on a membership register, which would have been supplied to IEBC in advance of the date of nominations. Secondly, that the list of candidates would be gazetted by IEBC before the nominations take place.
The rationale for these changes was improvement in the political environment, internal democracy and conduct of nominations. This week has provided a test for the efficacy of these legislative enactments.
The jury is still out. Many will be disappointed with what they watched occurring during the ongoing primaries. For these, there may be justification for those emotions. Having spent close to two decades studying and working on political party democratisation processes, I look at the ongoing process slightly differently.
Unlike past elections, the process of party nominations was more predictable and demonstrated progress from the events of 2007 that Kriegler complained of.
This time at least the dates of nominations were clear, the candidates for those positions mostly known in advance and the venues of the exercise were to take place identified and publicised. These are steps in the right direction.
The biggest challenge remains the political culture in the country. As events during the party primaries demonstrate, our politics is yet to fully mature.
One of the greatest contestations revolved around membership and membership register. The matter even found its way to the courts.
In mature political democracies, membership of parties is based on ideology. Movement from one party to another is consequently a very big deal. In our context though one can move from one party to another and back in less than a week. This was witnessed during this period.
Such movements are rarely based on conviction. Instead they are done out of temporary convenience. As a result, despite the requirement that party nominations be done based on a membership register by party members, debates still existed on implementing this requirement.
Some parties reportedly used the IEBC register instead of the membership list. In other instances, those who voted may have been more than the registered members of that particular political party.
It is imperative that implementation of the rule on membership to parties be strengthened. This will take more than just the prescriptive provisions of the law, useful as they may be.
It will require that parties improve the manner in which they recruit members and enhance their connection to members. This way there will be an attraction for one to be a member of party outside of vying for office and voting for such candidates.
The other issue is violence. The primaries demonstrate that politicians still see this as a tool for winning any political contest. The difference may be in scale but not reliance of violence as a tool.
This area requires party leadership to strongly and objectively punish those who seek to use violence to gain leadership positions.
As the primaries season draws to a close, it is important that lessons be drawn to inform the next stage of the electoral circle.
The greatest lesson remains the high-stakes nature of the 2017 elections and the need for enhanced vigilance to ensure these elections enable the country progress.
That task requires all citizens to engage more actively, honestly and passionately in the events leading to August 8.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
