Failed Leadership

Something is clearly wrong with our leaders. First, they plunge contemporary Kenya into the worst crisis it has faced with their never ending battle for power. Now they are convincing us that they should have 44 out of the current 220 ministers. That makes 20% of the government’s National Assembly. Just how much do we need ministers? We have operated with only 17 in the last 3 months noone even noticed! The only people required to run ministries are the Permanent Secretaries. Ministries should, in fact, be consolidated not split.

More from Wanjiru Kamau here.

So tonight when I sleep, I will sleep with one eye open

I refuse to accept that it is over. The hatred and the fighting is not over. No one can convince me that the less than 12 hour turn around on the choice between no negotiations and a coalition government came through the goodwill of our precious politicians at the helm. We should not be fooled into becoming clapping buffoons when the people responsible for bloodshed continue to leech us dry. We should not pat them on the back and say thank you for the resolution.

Read more from Bee Dablewkay here.

Africa, and Leadership

Is the failure in Kenya- now that we have been proved not so special- and in Africa, really a failure of leadership or this there other, perhaps justified, extenuation?

Musing through recent events, the apparent suspension of the ongoing mediation most of all, some questions are impelled on one's consciousness. Is there something (beer voucher to Ken Opalo for setting off this train of thought) to Chinua Achebe's thesis that the poverty of our leadership is the main obstacle to African progress?

Participate in this open thread here.

Political tribalism, moral ethnicity

Unlike, apparently, rather a lot of the people I like and respect, I think that the boycotts strategy announced by the ODM is a disastrous move, one that can only lead to greater pain. Let me explain. John Lonsdale somewhere distinguishes between political tribalism and moral ethnicity. (Never mind that I've always thought it a slightly tenuous distinction - everybody thinks the same of most distinctions they didn't first think of themselves.) Political tribalism is the constitution of an ethnicity by competition for state power and largesse against other, similarly constituted, ethnicities. Moral ethnicity on the other hand is a set of assumptions about public virtue for people like us. Political tribalism is inevitably adversarial; moral ethnicity inward-looking.

Read more from Daniel Waweru here.

The kiss of death, how Kenya could spoil it for Obama

If you are, as I suppose is likely, Kenyan, the content of this article may be a little bewildering. So let's start by saying that what passes for good and even holy in Kenya, is in most other places unpalatable.

The topmost class of Kenyan politics is mostly peopled by persons with truly dirty histories. Many of them have hands sullied to the elbows in the filth of corruption, constituting as they do a billionaire elect that has made millions in corrupt gains off of what passes for public service within our borders. Of this same political class are several politicians, many of whose political fortunes are in no small way built on the most tyrannical and divisive politics, promoting hatred, violence, exclusion and ethnic division.

Read more from Khadija Mohammed here.

Are there any good apples?

Even as they go into the elections in strong support of one side of the other, few Kenyans will have been impressed by the delivery of most of their politicians. In our question of the week this time, we offer an opportunity for the exoneration from blanket guilt of any politician who has proved himself worthy of the tag, leader.

Please give a specific reason here for your backing of this particular politician whether in parliament or at the local government level, and the reasons for which he can be distinguished from the prevalent view that all politicians are greedy, selfish and self-seeking charlatans.

Where is the Kenyan Left?

Kenya is badly crying out for leftist thought, for leftist ideas, even if this was merely outside parliament. The people's minds are totally caught up in the cultural hegemony of the religious priests and their tribal lords who are without exception corrupt billionaires. Many of them, shamelessly clothed in Marxist garb mouth platitudes about the need for reform, all the time directing our gaze away from the fact that they are complicit in the rape of our nation. Few of them were there to put up the scaffolding of the corrupt state, but they are very busy today supplying the steel and concrete for the Black Iron Prison, standing idly by but just as often abetting and participating in the disenfranchisement and empoverishment of the working masses.

Read more from Tim Norwood here.

Jaramogi’s Words of Wisdom

Kimani Njoroge writes on Kenya's former vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga's Not Yet Uhuru.

The book, Njoroge asserts, is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago. It strikes me that the very governance issues that he was addressing in 1960s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s are still rife today. The last Chapter, titled, OBSTACLES TO UHURU, reads like an address to today's breed of politicians.

Read more here.

Not my brother's keeper say Kenyan MPs

Doris Sadera speaks against Kenyan Members of Parliament who have refused to speak out against Mungiki.

No one in Kenya can claim that they and their family are completely safe from Mungiki, but the leaders whose job it is to protect us are busy posturing to save their necks, both physically and politically.

Read the rest here.

Defining a Dictator

While cautioning Kenyan politicians against loosely calling each other dictators, Collins Mbalo describes historical dictators and modern-day ones warning the Kenyan electorate to be careful who they vote for in the next presidential elections. Read the rest here.

The word dictator has been generously used in the recent past particularly in respect to one politician. Whether this be true or not, propaganda or otherwise is not the subject of this thread. Rather the question is does the term apply and if so, is there a fit?

A Grimm Tale

As fairytales go, this one has all the ingredients for a compelling classic. A foreign prince, king's daughter, swords (guns) drawn, a wicked step-mother, senseless courage and the promise of a wedding.

In order to pass this piece by this paper's usually hawkish editors, I guess I must qualify my opening statement. The Armenian star of this tale is only allegedly related to the Armenian Prime Minister, and the palace has disowned the king's daughter. The wicked step-mother is much loved by most but the rest of it is pretty real, although coming in a period when we are already overloaded with the tragedy on Mt. Elgon and the clamour for minimum constitutional reforms, it is a tad rich.

Tim Norwood, "The chronology may be a little off, there may be a distinct hint of levity, the details may be dodgy and Artur is neither planning a roundtable nor pulling swords out of rocks. Still it sounds like a fairytale, and the only real thing is my wish that it would all go away."