Amidst all the doom and gloom about the state of the economy and the rising cost of living, I would like to point out one positive development.
And this is that Kenyans seem to at last have got over their political cynicism and evolved into an electorate that holds its elected leaders accountable.
This has not always been the case. And I would go so far as to say that in previous election cycles, the pattern has been that voters, after the heat and dust of an election campaign, more or less resigned themselves to accepting whatever their leaders would offer them. Election campaign promises were rarely taken seriously.
To give my favourite example of such election promises, I would ask: When in 2002, presidential candidate Mwai Kibaki promised free primary school education, did very many voters take this seriously enough for that to influence how they cast their votes? Was it in the expectation of such a blessing that they overwhelmingly voted for him, making him the only presidential candidate in Kenyan history to win by a landslide?
I don’t think so.
Kenyan presidential elections have always been about the forming of political alliances between various regions, and an effort to ensure that your coalition formed a bigger vote bloc than your rivals’.
Well, Kibaki actually kept this promise once he became president. But that was to prove to be an exception to the rule. Our next President, Uhuru Kenyatta, was to promise us something which would no doubt have taken our education system to the next level if indeed it had been fulfilled.
Uhuru promised a laptop in the hands of every child, including presumably, those attending schools in which tuition was imparted under the shade of a large tree, as the classrooms had yet to be built.
Ten years later, Kenyan children still await those laptops.
And so, I wonder why it is that President William Ruto has not known any rest since his swearing-in, due largely to the promises he made when campaigning last year.
Not a day passes but loud outrage is expressed over why there is yet no sign of the prosperity he promised would flow from his 'bottom up' model of economic empowerment.
Regular readers of this column will know that I do not have any affection for social media. But anything that gives ordinary people a voice, and the opportunity to have a say in how they are governed, qualifies to some degree as a 'public good'.
And the public here in Kenya has been relentless in demanding that just about every promise made during the 2022 presidential election campaign must be fulfilled.
I think this marks a step forward for our evolving democracy.
Try to imagine a situation in which – in the absence of social media – a classic authoritarian like our former president Daniel Moi could have been held to account as concerns promises made in a previous election campaign.
Those who made the attempt would no doubt have lived to regret it.
But nowadays anybody can say what they like about the serving president, and sleep soundly thereafter, having no fear of a visit in the night by shadowy 'state security' agents.
Social media overflows with unwarranted insults directed towards the head of state and other top leaders. But this freedom to speak out and to hold leaders accountable also provides valuable feedback to those leaders.
This is true even though these commentators only represent a tiny minority of the entire population of the country.
Previously a serving president only realised what 'his people' really thought about him with the results of the next general election.
And we must note here that in all the elections that have been held since the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1991, no president seeking reelection has ever been able to secure a landslide victory, no matter what he did.
Invariably, serving presidents have barely managed to gain the slimmest of victories, and even then, only in circumstances which lent credence to the claims by the opposition parties that the election had been rigged in the president’s favour.