The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
The tendency of Kenyans to vote in ethnic blocks explains why the democratic process in that country tends to sustain elite privilege even at the expense of public policies that are supposed to serve the ordinary citizen.
For example, Kenya’s 2012/13 budget is in excess of US$ 16 billion for a population of only 40 million. This equals to per capita expenditure of US$400 per person. Compare this with Uganda whose expenditure per capita is US$ 114 or Rwanda at US$118. There is little in Kenya’s public goods and services, compared to Uganda and Rwanda, to show for this high level of public expenditure. Instead, at a basic salary of US$ 13,500 per month, an MP in Kenya earns more than twice what an MP in France earns (US$6,400) – a country whose GDP is almost 80 times larger.
Thus, given that France’s per capital income is US$35,000, there is really a close relationship in income between an average citizen in France and their representative who earn US$77,000 per year. The income of a Kenyan MP at US$ 162,000 (or US$350,000 in PPP) per year compares sadly with Kenya’s per capita income of US$830 ($1,700 in PPP). Therefore, the income gap between an MP in Kenya and that of his average voter is really large, making it difficult for the democratic process to produce legislators who can be real champions of the interests of their constituents.
Therefore, in spite of electoral democracy, and in spite of large outlays of government revenue compared to its neighbours, the ability of the state in Kenya to deliver public goods and services to the citizens remains relatively low. This is because in building a winning electoral coalition, Kenyan politicians need not appeal directly to the masses that vote. Rather they need to negotiate with powerful ethnic intermediaries that represent the masses. These powerful men and women then act as a bridge between the presidential candidate or political party and their co-ethnics.
This organisation of electoral coalitions has powerful implications on the strategies of the state. It means that the productive margin in the search for votes does not lie in provision of public goods and services to citizens. It lies with providing private goods to influential ethnic intermediaries.
Private goods to elites may include a politically influential and economically lucrative ministerial appointment or an appointment to a board of a powerful state enterprise – and with it, huge perks and privileges including official cars, flights abroad etc. But it will also include unofficial opportunities to profit through corruption. Here, the politician may directly steal from the state or use the state to direct public sector tenders to companies owned by friends and allies.
If a politician can win the presidency by placating the interests of a few elites from a given community, that is a more cost-effective and cost-efficient strategy compared to providing public goods and services to that region. But this does not mean that the coalition ignores provision of public goods and services to ordinary voters. Constituents do demand public goods and services.
Politicians win votes by showing how able they have been to leverage their positions to secure “development projects” for their constituencies. These projects may include roads, bridges, hospitals and schools. The point is that the primary driver of the coalition is the trade in private goods among elites – public goods and service to the citizen coming as a second.
The second consequence of these political strategies is corruption. To keep powerful elites in the coalition, the president and his ruling party have to turn a blind eye to official theft. Take the example of the Uhuru-Ruto ticket. Whatever the issues that may have underpinned it, it was an alliance of the largest and third largest ethnic groups in Kenya.
Meanwhile, the Raila-Musyoka ticket was an alliance of the fourth and fifth largest ethnic communities of Kenya. The second largest ethnic community, the Luhya – themselves a conglomeration of 16 sub ethnic groups – have never voted as a block. From the word go, therefore, this arithmetic meant that the dice was loaded in favour of the Uhuru-Ruto ticket.
Without Ruto’s support, it is unlikely that Uhuru would have defeated Raila. Indeed, Raila may have realised that his break-up with Ruto was the critical factor that denied him the presidency. If Uhuru desires to win a second term, and holding other factors constant, the last thing he can afford is a breakdown of his relationship with Ruto. However, assuming Ruto and many of those in his group turn out to be incompetent and/or corrupt, what options does Uhuru have? Can he fire him? If yes: at what price?
Ethnic block voting, therefore, tends to strengthen the hand of elites over the masses. But this is only possible by leveraging ethnicity. However, to become a powerful ethnic powerbroker, the individual politician needs to accumulate wealth and money to sustain a large retinue of hangers-on – hence corruption. Within the context of such patronage politics, corruption becomes the way the system works, not the way it fails. Hence, in the specific context of that nation’s politics, the democratic process in Kenya tends to produce an anti-democratic outcome.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
