Columnists

Why Uhuru, Raila deal is good for economy

UHURU

President Uhuru Kenyatta (right) and opposition leader Raila Odinga. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Kenyan economy badly needed a new dose of optimism. That is why the sudden rapprochement between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga is receiving wide support across the political divide.

We have a fragile economy that can neither withstand nor survive prolonged protest rallies, mass action or politically-instigated consumer boycotts.

In our urban areas, we have just too many nihilist and idle young men who are always ready and willing to come out in large numbers to engage police in violent street demonstrations.

Depending on how the rapprochement between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga is managed- going forward, the truce between these two pre-eminent political protagonists in the country could ease political temperatures.

It could relieve our society of the pressures, ethnic tensions and suspicions that have refused to die and have remained palpable since the August 8 General Election.

The impact on the play of politics - and the re alignments the peace deal between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga is bound to provoke will especially be interesting to watch.

Already, the indications are that the deal has injected a new sense unpredictability and uncertainty among the major political players.

I can’t wait to see the tactics, the hostile manoeuvring, the realignments and the short- term political calculations that are bound to happen as the players warm up and start preparing for the battle to succeed Mr Kenyatta in 2022.

At the end of the day, more political competition is what we should expect.

And the fact that political competition is bound to intensify in these early stages of Mr Kenyatta’s second term should be a good thing for us because competition has a restraining influence on the behaviour of the elite.

When there is unpredictability in the air, political leaders tend to be tolerant and more willing to bargain and negotiate with opponents.

Such an atmosphere is also good for the economy and economic reforms.

When you allow a small clique of individuals to feel too powerful and to behave as though they are not accountable to anyone, you end up with an atmosphere that breeds corruption.

Grand corruption thrives under conditions of weak political competition.

Worse, overbearing and dominant incumbents are prone to taking populist decisions that only serve to imperil macro-economic stability.

When a leader succumbs to populism, economic reforms are thrown to the back burner.

Which brings me to a bit of historical reflection on the politics of this country.

Indeed, the deal between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga is a good conjuncture for us to do a serious reflection on how the politics of this country has changed- where we are going, where we are coming from- and what all this means for the democratic experiment we started in 1992.

The first thing I see as I retrospect is that political alliances and groupings in this country are becoming more and more arbitrary.

What we see from both sides of the divide are leaders who have no major differences on how the country should be run.

Today, no single party can claim the radical platform.

Those forces that spearheaded the original Ford - the Marxist-Leninist academics, former political detainees, radical members of civil society and non-conformist bishops have been demobilised and swallowed by the mainstream.

It explains why our politics is becoming more and more transactional by the day- totally bereft of ideology and principle.

What reforms should we push for during the window opened to us by the deal between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga?

The agenda for economic reforms cannot fit the space in these columns. But the priority of the moment is as follows.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga must bring down political temperatures, exorcise grievances of the recent elections, deal with claims about marginalisation, electoral reform and corruption- and in the process- create the space for national healing.