Eldas MP and Jubilee Coalition secretary Adan Keynan penned an article in the Star cataloguing the woes and misfortunes bedevilling the ruling party.
However a strategic analysis of an issue needs a holistic approach. Keynan’s focus was on apportioning blame and finger pointing. It did not to diagnose the reasons why Kenyans are disillusioned with the Jubilee Party. It was more of a strategic repositioning of an individual rather than a constructive critical take on the needs of the party. As his constituent, I would like to remind him the history and the reasons behind the dwindling fortunes of Jubilee.
In the run-up to the 2017 general election TNA, URP and a number of other parties merged to form a political behemoth, Jubilee, in the frame of ANC of South Africa and CCM of Tanzania.
In the election, the party not only won the presidency but dominated both Houses of parliament, county assemblies and governorships. At the base of its campaign manifesto were aspirations that Kenyans believed, if well executed, would deliver the nation the promised land of economic and social prosperity.
Four years later, political gloom and economic doom hangs over the nation.
Its leaders have not put the political capital that Jubilee earned to good use. In its place, there emerged a hubris-like arrogance and pride that has become the hallmark of Jubilee and its leaders. Some of the leaders of the party started imagining themselves as bulletproof against any political damage. They started to underestimate, belittle and undermine the citizenry. The more power they assumed, the more they lost the limits of their power.
This insolence tempted the party to self cannibalise. Without due regard for party procedures, structures and rule of law, Jubilee went for the jugular of some of its leaders in Parliament, those associated with the deputy party leader, William Ruto.
In so doing, the party remained with a parliamentary leadership that could not remind the party and its leaders of the limits of its powers and its responsibility to Kenyans. Parliament has also become beholden to the party and is now a junior partner to the Executive. The Legislature has become so weak such that debate is severely curtailed; party leaders dictate the agenda and the country’s pressing problems are not on the radar of the Legislature.
The BBI is a classic by- product of the insolence and infallibility of the party. Believing that no power can stop its ambitions, Jubilee and its associates embarked on an elaborate scheme to fundamentally alter the basic structure of the Constitution. Without any regard to the rule of law and the tenets of constitutional amendment, the party stealthily intended in one sweep, to reverse the gains and ideals of one of the most progressive constitutions in the world.
The party, still on a self-destruction mode, incompetently managed the greatest threat the nation has faced, the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the aura of infallibility, state officers looted billions that were either borrowed or donated to the country to manage the crisis.
The party and its associates also put greater value to politics than the threat facing the nation. Party leaders were and still are the greatest violators of Covid-19 containment protocols. The party's dogged determination to put the nation on a constant political mood through the BBI puts the country in a harm’s way.
Jubilee’s hubris has not spared the Judiciary. In the last four years, the ruling party was selective on what court orders to ignore and which ones to obey. The legal defeats that the party and its leaders has been contending with, is a clear proof that leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.
The party has also poorly managed the economy and saddled the nation with an inordinate amount of public debt. Debt servicing costs have for the first time surpassed recurrent expenditure. The cost of living is so prohibitive that it’s taking a heavy toll on the mental health of the citizenry.
The Jubilee Party and by extension the nation is at a crossroads. The party must understand that hubris and pride lead to indulgence in fantasies of omnipotence that makes one to lose touch with reality. The party lost connection with the masses and the problems bedeviling the nation and its now staring at a political cul-de-sac.
The party must now turn and understand it draws its power from the citizens and empower them to participate in the nation’s governance.
Abdille Yussuf is the secretary general, Eldas Professionals Association