Just three months ago, as I have exclaimed elsewhere, who would have imagined that Kenya's talking heads would be as embroiled in the Grand Opposition debate as they are? I didn't. Still, I am certainly enjoying this enthralling phase of our political evolution. Enthralling, that is, if Namwamba and his team don't betray the cause.
It's all been very dialectical. First, the general election of December 2007. Then the disputed presidential election results. Then the chaos and the blood-letting. "Den cometh Koffi, den de peace -- which only a true peacemaker bringeth." Then Kibaki and Raila negotiate an unbelievably skewed distribution of cabinet slots. Then the fallout of disappointment at Raila's performance, left alone with Kibaki. In Kisumu, that disappointment exploded a few weeks ago into what must be the first true expression of proletarian (and semi-proletarian) disenchantment with the dominant power structure in those parts! The rest, as one might say, is this unfolding -- this current -- history that we are very much a part of.
On the night Kenya's parliament elected the new speaker, my impression of Namwamba was of someone who needed to grow up a just little more. Less than three months later, he has become the symbol, the robust new face, of Kenya's never-say-die politics. In a way, he is the new Orengo (and perhaps Raila, if he can secure a solid political base).
How did things change so fast that Raila, the doyen of opposition politics, is now seen as the apologist for an established political order of which he is only tenuously a part; the defender of a status quo which seeks to concentrate political power (and then economic power) in the hands of the very wenyewe whom the Second Liberation was supposed to "drive out of town"? Whichever way it happened, it is the very reason for the rise of Namwamba and his team -- motley as it is, and flawed as some of its members are.
"We are now in government," Raila reminds the team (in an earlier day they would have been the vinyangalika) -- who must be shown and kept in their place. If they want to form a Grand Opposition, then they must resign from parliament and seek fresh mandate from the people under the banner of parties of their choice. Certainly not ODM or PNU, without which they (with the exception of Jirongo and only a fistful more) would not be in parliament now.
Since ODM and PNU are in government, he reasons, and their members cannot be both in government and opposition. That, in his view, is an irreconcilable contradiction. The cabinet even convinced itself that it had the power to veto the Grand Coalition. Veto it as what? As an insolent thought? As a piece of legislation yet to be tabled? Then ODM called a meeting at Safari Park Hotel to thrash out this apparent confusion of memes. According to reports, however, only some 40 out of 96 ODM MPs (including Namwamba and "the little Ruto") attended. There was a stalemate.
I don't know what Namwamba's career path is going to be in the years and decades to come, but right now he has a very important role to play -- a role so dramatically abandoned by Raila at potentially the moment of his greatest triumph yet. Right now, Ababu (Don't-abandon-the-cause) Namwamba is the symbol of hope for a system of governance with proper checks and balances -- a system disdainful of private interest masquerading as public interest.
The idea of the Grand Opposition is borne of necessity. With almost everybody in government now, it is something of a deception, and politically fraudulent, to insist that Namwamba and his team seek to establish what could equally be achieved by the back bench -- achieved, that is, without in the process ruffling the feathers of the mighty. In the present circumstances, clearly, the back bench would be a divide-and-rule device, a smokescreen for grand mischief. As a solution, it is highly unsatisfactory vis-a-vis the right of the people to express and realize their will, unfettered, through their elected representatives. It is indeed a corrosion and even a negation of that right. And it displays a basic and hidden fear, on the part of those who would use the parliamentary system to ascend to power, of the principle of advice-and-consent -- in the true meaning of the term -- which ought to govern all democratic discourse.
So such negations must in turn, or preemptively, be negated. It is all very dialectical, as I said. But our history is peopled by individuals who rose on the back of the people's aspirations for a good life, only to succumb to the lure of personal aggrandizement, or the fear (in the face of unrelenting intimidation and assault) of unbearable personal loss. I don't know how Namwamba will deal with such pressure, which will surely come. But let him run the good race. As long as he can, let him carry the baton -- in this race whose length, in time and space, no one can tell. Someone will surely be there when it is time to pass the baton. Namwamba's historic significance is that he was there when it needed to be passed.
And his team should take solace in the fact that those opposed to the Grand Opposition will soon ask for its support to pass in parliament whatever version of the new constitution the Grand Coalition will craft for the people's approval. The time for a quid pro quo awaits in the near distance -- near, yes, but out of view for the near-sighted who want to eat their cake and have it.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Hillary Clinton for VP?
With the campaign season winding down for this year's nomination of the Democratic Party's flag-bearer, media attention has increasingly turned to the question of who is to be the Presidential nominee's running-mate. That nominee is most certainly now going to be Barack Obama, but is Hillary Clinton a suitable nominee for Vice President?
Many arguments have been put forth in the print and electronic media (including the blogosphere) in support of her nomination as the party's candidate for VP. Let us recall a few. Some argue, even insist, that this is the only way that her millions of ardent supporters -- women, working-class whites and older (baby-boomer) voters -- will vote for the Democratic ticket. Related to that, others point out that if she is not part of the ticket, then she (or the Clinton family as a whole)will not campaign with any enthusiasm for their party's nominee. As an aside, it is pointed out that Al Gore lost to Bush II in 2000 at least in part because he did not make full use of the magic of Brand Clinton.
Moreover, since she has proven to be "more electable" than Obama, she cannot simply be ignored. Indeed, Obama's impending victory at the party's convention in August will be a hollow one, it is argued, because he has failed to win the swing (or red) states which a Democrat must win in the general elections this November to enter the White House. These states include West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio -- not to mention the other must-win states such as California and New York, both of which Hillary also won. And if Florida and Michigan votes were to be discounted, and their delegates not fully seated or not seated at all at the Democratic convention, then the party would essentially be giving the nod to an impostor whom the voters will duly reject in November. So the argument goes, notwithstanding the fact that Obama has so far actually won more states, more pledged delegates and more popular votes, and is leading in the superdelegate-count. In fact, his lead is mathematically insurmountable for Hillary.
Hillary insists that she is not a quitter, and that she will fight until the party officially has a nominee, before which the matter of Florida and Michigan must be resolved. Even before it is, however, she is already claiming to have the majority of the popular votes cast -- that is, when you include, yes, Florida and Michigan. Despite party rules and tradition which give the nod based on delegates, not popular votes, she would like to rewrite the rules and the tradidion, presumably just for this campaign season, to have as the criterion for nomination the majority of popular votes cast. Conveniently ignored, for the moment is that though Gore led Bush by some 500,000 popular votes in 2002, Bush became president because the law gives the nod to the candidate who has the majority of votes in the electoral college, adding up to some 270 votes -- not the popular votes.
Lately, however, Hillary has begun publicly to acknowledge that the odds of her winning the nomination are slim, but she fights on. However, some in her campaign team have begun pushing for her nomination for VP. Even her husband, Bill Clinton, has begun quietly to spearhead the campaign for the number two slot for her. He is doing so while insisting that she is the one the party should nominate for President if it is to have any reasonable hope of returning to the White House after the November election.
Many in Obama's camp, and many non-partisan commentators, have a different view. They believe that Hillary's negative poll-rating (lately in the upper 60s), partly related to her campaign style, her years as a Washington insider and her husband's record in the White House, would be a real drag on Obama's campaign and Presidence -- predicated as it is on change ("Change You Can Believe In"). It would represent, so the argument goes, a return of sorts of the Clintons (and related scandals)to the White House. Obama would not be his own man -- the Clintons would constantly try to upstage him, and Bill would continue to speak, in calculated but always deniable ways, out of turn. In effect, he would be an elephant who would soon run out of China -- and run Obama out of the China Shop (the White House); but none too soon for Hillary to launch her campaign for 2012.
The notion that Obama needs Hillary for victory in November must be interrogated in context. Yes, JFK chose LBJ as his running-mate in 1960, despite the viciousness of that nomination season. The duo did win, but to say that they were not real buddies is to understate it. Kennedy was assassinated in Texas (only incidentally Johnsons' home-state)in 1963, and Johnson became President. He was sworn into office while airborne -- somewhere between Dallas and Washington, D.C. -- on the same Air Force One that was returning the slain President's body back to Washington, D.C.
Johnson and RFK did not see eye-to-eye -- at all, it seems -- and there are many who would argue that the blame for this must be apportioned equally. Johnson won the 1964 Presidential election with a landslide, with Hubert Humphrey (not RFK) as his running-mate, for his own full term. He was entitled to stand again in 1968, but chose not to after (after, as many observers might insist) RFK declared his own candidacy. And then, of course, RFK was assassinated, in California. Johnson did not change his mind about standing -- probably weighed down by the Viet Nam war.
Hillary has lately used RFK's assassination as one reason for her continued campaign for the Democratic nomination. This has sparked off a firestorm. But she pleads innocence, arguing that she harbours no macabre wishes. This, her campaign insists, is not one of the big thunderbolts from the blue sky -- bigger than Obama's comments about "bitter" (and presumably mostly white) rural folk who cling to religion, guns and even bigotry; and bigger than Rev. Wright's rantings -- she had on her mind which might strike Obama and force him out of the race. She needed to be there, as an active candidate, when that hopefully happened -- lest some other (less worthy? less entitled?)candidate jump into the fray. It was, rather, merely a factual but probably ill-considered reference to how long earlier contests (including her own husband's in 1992)have lasted. Ill-considered in May even, as it turns out, after she had made the same reference last March!
I think Hillary and Bill are too selfishly calculating for her to be Obama's running-mate. It seems that they would accept the VP slot only because it would further their interest; and that interest does not necessarily include Obama's victory in November 2008, or possible re-election in 2012. In fact, his victory would be her final loss -- and Bill's. So who says that as nominee for Vice President she would campaign energetically for the ticket's victory this November. And even if they were to win in November, what assurance is there that there would be no persistent attempts to handicap Obama in order to ensure her own ascendancy in 2012? I think that this kind of thinking must have informed LBJ's choice of a running-mate for the 1964 elections.
There are pundits who point out that the Clintons did not fully involve themselves in Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000 -- though, in their view, it was Gore who chose to keep Bill on the sidelines. Probably there is some truth in that -- the same truth which explains why McCain is not too keen to have Bush II publicly involved in his campaign. Other pundits claim that the Clintons were not really enthusiastic about Kerry's bid in 2004, either. In both campaigns, it is pointed out, Hillary's own presidential ambitions could only be furthered by Gore's and then Kerry's failures.
Now, available evidence amply shows that these ambitions of Hillary's were alive and kicking even while the Clintons were still in the White House. I may add that they probably give the definitive reason why she did not leave Bill (and the White House) after the Lewinski scandal. To do so would have been to abandon her own self-constructed future, a future which Obama out of nowhere now stands in the way of -- insolently, disrespectful of proper pecking order.
Let me illustrate my own unease with Hillary being Number Two with the contents of an excerpt from Sally Bedell Smith's book For Love of Politics which appeared in the Vanity Fair edition of November 2007 [the book itself was scheduled for publication in February, 2008]. I have read the excerpt,not yet the book. What does Smith say? Despite some kind of written "pre-nuptial" between Bill the President and Gore the Vice President, Hillary invariably stood in the way; "She was the absolutely necessary person he had to have to bounce things up against, and he was that for her." So the constitutional two-some of President and Vice President became a three-some, with Hillary's inclusion in the making of all major decisions. No wonder she claims to have the experience which Obama does not have -- and which David Gergen, a Presidential advisor, considered then a "rolling disaster".
Smith notes, however, that Hillary's political life reached a milestone on November 6, 1998 -- the day Senator Moynihan declared that he would not seek a fifth term in November 2000 as a Senator from New York. Since the Clintons had already been eying that seat for months, it took her only a few days after the announcement to decide that she would run for that seat. Smith adds that as a sitting President, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice-president's candidacy, "But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary 'in a big way'" -- and, Governor Mario Cuomo had noted then, the "implications for Gore [were] very serious."
"Not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner" for Gore, Smith says, "she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president" -- who had announced his own run for President in June 1999 (while the Clinton family was away in Europe). And even before Hillary's senate campaign officially kicked off, she had on one occasion insisted on being invited to a Gore fund-raiser organized by Gore's wife Tipper and her friends in Los Angeles. She was, only to ask for donations for herself from the same audience -- in front of Tipper! That was not to be the end of her, and Bill's, mean-spiritedness.
Smith observes that Bill's behaviour throughout 2000, the last year of his own presidency, "betrayed ambivalence about a Gore victory, at least one earned on the vice president's own terms." This behaviour manifested itself in "making passive-aggressive remarks, belittling Gore in private, grabbing the spotlight with his own star turns, and continuing to argue his innocence in various scandals."
And Hillary's own Senate campaign interests increasingly collided with Gore's presidential ambitions, as was dramatized in September 2000 in a tussle over who should publicize the Federal Trade Commission's report on violence in the media -- the First Lady running for Senate, or the Vice President running for President. To beat her to a limelight which she insisted on sharing -- if necessary, a negotiated sharing -- Gore and Lieberman (his running mate) secretly arranged a New York Times newsbreak, which appeared in the morning of the same September 11 when the FTC report was scheduled for release.
On election night in November 2000, Hillary won her Senate fight, while Gore embarked on a month-long "political purgatory" on account of the Florida recount, which eventually gave Busth the presidency. But, "Almost immediately [after Hillary's victory, and presumably before the Florida recount was completed] the rumors started about a Hillary presidential candidacy in 2004 or 2008," Smith points out.
As I have followed the contest during this primary season on TV and the Internet, and in the print media, I have come to the conclusion that, like many others, that Obama must look for another running-mate. If Hillary wants to be president, it shouldn\t be on Obama's stabbed back. She can leave him alone to fail on his own this November. Then she will be free try her luck again in 2012. I have seen a list of 5 or so perfectly capable running-mates for Obama.
Many arguments have been put forth in the print and electronic media (including the blogosphere) in support of her nomination as the party's candidate for VP. Let us recall a few. Some argue, even insist, that this is the only way that her millions of ardent supporters -- women, working-class whites and older (baby-boomer) voters -- will vote for the Democratic ticket. Related to that, others point out that if she is not part of the ticket, then she (or the Clinton family as a whole)will not campaign with any enthusiasm for their party's nominee. As an aside, it is pointed out that Al Gore lost to Bush II in 2000 at least in part because he did not make full use of the magic of Brand Clinton.
Moreover, since she has proven to be "more electable" than Obama, she cannot simply be ignored. Indeed, Obama's impending victory at the party's convention in August will be a hollow one, it is argued, because he has failed to win the swing (or red) states which a Democrat must win in the general elections this November to enter the White House. These states include West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio -- not to mention the other must-win states such as California and New York, both of which Hillary also won. And if Florida and Michigan votes were to be discounted, and their delegates not fully seated or not seated at all at the Democratic convention, then the party would essentially be giving the nod to an impostor whom the voters will duly reject in November. So the argument goes, notwithstanding the fact that Obama has so far actually won more states, more pledged delegates and more popular votes, and is leading in the superdelegate-count. In fact, his lead is mathematically insurmountable for Hillary.
Hillary insists that she is not a quitter, and that she will fight until the party officially has a nominee, before which the matter of Florida and Michigan must be resolved. Even before it is, however, she is already claiming to have the majority of the popular votes cast -- that is, when you include, yes, Florida and Michigan. Despite party rules and tradition which give the nod based on delegates, not popular votes, she would like to rewrite the rules and the tradidion, presumably just for this campaign season, to have as the criterion for nomination the majority of popular votes cast. Conveniently ignored, for the moment is that though Gore led Bush by some 500,000 popular votes in 2002, Bush became president because the law gives the nod to the candidate who has the majority of votes in the electoral college, adding up to some 270 votes -- not the popular votes.
Lately, however, Hillary has begun publicly to acknowledge that the odds of her winning the nomination are slim, but she fights on. However, some in her campaign team have begun pushing for her nomination for VP. Even her husband, Bill Clinton, has begun quietly to spearhead the campaign for the number two slot for her. He is doing so while insisting that she is the one the party should nominate for President if it is to have any reasonable hope of returning to the White House after the November election.
Many in Obama's camp, and many non-partisan commentators, have a different view. They believe that Hillary's negative poll-rating (lately in the upper 60s), partly related to her campaign style, her years as a Washington insider and her husband's record in the White House, would be a real drag on Obama's campaign and Presidence -- predicated as it is on change ("Change You Can Believe In"). It would represent, so the argument goes, a return of sorts of the Clintons (and related scandals)to the White House. Obama would not be his own man -- the Clintons would constantly try to upstage him, and Bill would continue to speak, in calculated but always deniable ways, out of turn. In effect, he would be an elephant who would soon run out of China -- and run Obama out of the China Shop (the White House); but none too soon for Hillary to launch her campaign for 2012.
The notion that Obama needs Hillary for victory in November must be interrogated in context. Yes, JFK chose LBJ as his running-mate in 1960, despite the viciousness of that nomination season. The duo did win, but to say that they were not real buddies is to understate it. Kennedy was assassinated in Texas (only incidentally Johnsons' home-state)in 1963, and Johnson became President. He was sworn into office while airborne -- somewhere between Dallas and Washington, D.C. -- on the same Air Force One that was returning the slain President's body back to Washington, D.C.
Johnson and RFK did not see eye-to-eye -- at all, it seems -- and there are many who would argue that the blame for this must be apportioned equally. Johnson won the 1964 Presidential election with a landslide, with Hubert Humphrey (not RFK) as his running-mate, for his own full term. He was entitled to stand again in 1968, but chose not to after (after, as many observers might insist) RFK declared his own candidacy. And then, of course, RFK was assassinated, in California. Johnson did not change his mind about standing -- probably weighed down by the Viet Nam war.
Hillary has lately used RFK's assassination as one reason for her continued campaign for the Democratic nomination. This has sparked off a firestorm. But she pleads innocence, arguing that she harbours no macabre wishes. This, her campaign insists, is not one of the big thunderbolts from the blue sky -- bigger than Obama's comments about "bitter" (and presumably mostly white) rural folk who cling to religion, guns and even bigotry; and bigger than Rev. Wright's rantings -- she had on her mind which might strike Obama and force him out of the race. She needed to be there, as an active candidate, when that hopefully happened -- lest some other (less worthy? less entitled?)candidate jump into the fray. It was, rather, merely a factual but probably ill-considered reference to how long earlier contests (including her own husband's in 1992)have lasted. Ill-considered in May even, as it turns out, after she had made the same reference last March!
I think Hillary and Bill are too selfishly calculating for her to be Obama's running-mate. It seems that they would accept the VP slot only because it would further their interest; and that interest does not necessarily include Obama's victory in November 2008, or possible re-election in 2012. In fact, his victory would be her final loss -- and Bill's. So who says that as nominee for Vice President she would campaign energetically for the ticket's victory this November. And even if they were to win in November, what assurance is there that there would be no persistent attempts to handicap Obama in order to ensure her own ascendancy in 2012? I think that this kind of thinking must have informed LBJ's choice of a running-mate for the 1964 elections.
There are pundits who point out that the Clintons did not fully involve themselves in Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000 -- though, in their view, it was Gore who chose to keep Bill on the sidelines. Probably there is some truth in that -- the same truth which explains why McCain is not too keen to have Bush II publicly involved in his campaign. Other pundits claim that the Clintons were not really enthusiastic about Kerry's bid in 2004, either. In both campaigns, it is pointed out, Hillary's own presidential ambitions could only be furthered by Gore's and then Kerry's failures.
Now, available evidence amply shows that these ambitions of Hillary's were alive and kicking even while the Clintons were still in the White House. I may add that they probably give the definitive reason why she did not leave Bill (and the White House) after the Lewinski scandal. To do so would have been to abandon her own self-constructed future, a future which Obama out of nowhere now stands in the way of -- insolently, disrespectful of proper pecking order.
Let me illustrate my own unease with Hillary being Number Two with the contents of an excerpt from Sally Bedell Smith's book For Love of Politics which appeared in the Vanity Fair edition of November 2007 [the book itself was scheduled for publication in February, 2008]. I have read the excerpt,not yet the book. What does Smith say? Despite some kind of written "pre-nuptial" between Bill the President and Gore the Vice President, Hillary invariably stood in the way; "She was the absolutely necessary person he had to have to bounce things up against, and he was that for her." So the constitutional two-some of President and Vice President became a three-some, with Hillary's inclusion in the making of all major decisions. No wonder she claims to have the experience which Obama does not have -- and which David Gergen, a Presidential advisor, considered then a "rolling disaster".
Smith notes, however, that Hillary's political life reached a milestone on November 6, 1998 -- the day Senator Moynihan declared that he would not seek a fifth term in November 2000 as a Senator from New York. Since the Clintons had already been eying that seat for months, it took her only a few days after the announcement to decide that she would run for that seat. Smith adds that as a sitting President, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice-president's candidacy, "But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary 'in a big way'" -- and, Governor Mario Cuomo had noted then, the "implications for Gore [were] very serious."
"Not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner" for Gore, Smith says, "she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president" -- who had announced his own run for President in June 1999 (while the Clinton family was away in Europe). And even before Hillary's senate campaign officially kicked off, she had on one occasion insisted on being invited to a Gore fund-raiser organized by Gore's wife Tipper and her friends in Los Angeles. She was, only to ask for donations for herself from the same audience -- in front of Tipper! That was not to be the end of her, and Bill's, mean-spiritedness.
Smith observes that Bill's behaviour throughout 2000, the last year of his own presidency, "betrayed ambivalence about a Gore victory, at least one earned on the vice president's own terms." This behaviour manifested itself in "making passive-aggressive remarks, belittling Gore in private, grabbing the spotlight with his own star turns, and continuing to argue his innocence in various scandals."
And Hillary's own Senate campaign interests increasingly collided with Gore's presidential ambitions, as was dramatized in September 2000 in a tussle over who should publicize the Federal Trade Commission's report on violence in the media -- the First Lady running for Senate, or the Vice President running for President. To beat her to a limelight which she insisted on sharing -- if necessary, a negotiated sharing -- Gore and Lieberman (his running mate) secretly arranged a New York Times newsbreak, which appeared in the morning of the same September 11 when the FTC report was scheduled for release.
On election night in November 2000, Hillary won her Senate fight, while Gore embarked on a month-long "political purgatory" on account of the Florida recount, which eventually gave Busth the presidency. But, "Almost immediately [after Hillary's victory, and presumably before the Florida recount was completed] the rumors started about a Hillary presidential candidacy in 2004 or 2008," Smith points out.
As I have followed the contest during this primary season on TV and the Internet, and in the print media, I have come to the conclusion that, like many others, that Obama must look for another running-mate. If Hillary wants to be president, it shouldn\t be on Obama's stabbed back. She can leave him alone to fail on his own this November. Then she will be free try her luck again in 2012. I have seen a list of 5 or so perfectly capable running-mates for Obama.
Monday, May 26, 2008
My Vision, Mission and Agenda for Kisumu Rural Constituency, 2007
MY VISION:
For Kenya: A country and nation-state in which public policy serves the public interest, not private interest. A self-confident, assertive and united Kenya. A prosperous and respected Kenya.
For Kisumu Rural: An increasingly prosperous constituency characterized by sustainable social and economic development, and by the enthusiastic participation of all – women, youth and wazee – in the development effort. An electorate empowered to take its destiny into its own hands. An electorate once again optimistic and confident of the future.
MY MISSION:
To be a leader who leads from the front, and from the heart. To bring back hope and self-respect, and the respect of the nation, to my constituents. To represent them with courage and conviction. To give them the means “to fish,”so as to eliminate the need for handouts. To regenerate the community's social capital by way of new thinking and related activities. To be, in a word, a catalyst and an overcomer. At the centre of all our effort will be innovative Value Added Production (VAP) of goods and services, and a creatively structured synergy between Kisumu Rural and Kisumu City.
MY AGENDA/PRIORITIES/PROGRAMME OF ACTION:
MY Agenda -- The Main Problems I Propose to Prioritize and Tackle:
1.Poverty/Unemployment/Underemployment: Gross incomelessness.
2.Infrastructure: Underdeveloped and deteriorating
3.Education: Declining or stunted educational institutions in terms of physical facilities/amenities, equipment (including ICT) and staffing, and sub-par performance in national exams
4.Health: HIV/AIDS and Malaria pandemic; unplanned evolution of the public health sector
5.Social: The precarious lives of widows and orphans, as well as idle/isolated youth
6.CDF and related Funds: gross misuse and mis-allocation of funds, leading to lost opportunities and arrested futures
7.Leadership: Arrogant and neglectful leadership. For nearly forty years, the country's dominant political culture has been neglectful and at times even hostile to the poor. There is dire need for new, people-oriented leadership and, above all, new thinking – at the Constituency and Ward levels.
The Solutions [My Programme of Action]:
["Piny omewo, ji to odhier!” – The land is rich but the people are poor. Why are they poor? Many reasons. For one, they have not had strong and concerned leadership]
1. Nurturing of Income Earning/Generating Opportunities and Assets (To secure the present, for today's parents and out-of-school youth; a precondition for dongruok ma medore)
– Jobs, Self-employment (trade, craft skills, tools of trade, credit, backward and forward linkages, tourism, services)
“Employment gives the otherwise poor, the employed, the resources with which to overcome poverty – or keep it at bay. The higher the returns accruing from employment, the more distant the risk of poverty...” – Mauri Yambo
According to the World Bank, past experience shows that poverty is now best tackled by means of a three-pronged strategy: 1. Promoting Opportunity for Poor People. 2. Facilitating Their Empowerment. 3. Enhancing their Security.
– Revive agriculture; energize trade and markets; develop synergies.
– Focus on the Demand Side. Government should not just concentrate on Social Overhead Capital of the old kind: Roads, bridges, airports, dams, harbours. A new concept of SOC must be adopted which recognizes that mobilization and galvanization are key ingredients of progress. Institutions must be set up to generate critical mass in selected areas of socio-economic life.
- The fundamental goal is to put increasing amounts of hard-earned cash (and related assets) into the pockets, vibeti, accounts and other secure holdings of hard-working constituents, and to ensure that those assets grow and work for them.
2. Improved Infrastructure (rehabilitated, regularly maintained, expanded transportation and communication networks): roads, bridges, beaches, culverts, power lines, telephone lines, water pipelines, boreholes, etc.
3. Revolution in Education and Training [To secure the future, for the next generation and for posterity, and to enhance the prospects for sustainable development. This requires improved income. Paradoxically, however, years of schooling have a positive relationship with one's “income-earning ability” (see World Bank Policy and Research Bulletin of October-December 2000/January-March 2001, p. 1)]:
a. Focused programme of physical facility development: Improved design, use of a more durable mix of materials, maintenance plan.
b. Equipment: Laboratory Kits for Secondary Schools, Libraries, Books.
c. Performance: Establishing Centres of Excellence, ICT connectivity (Bridging the Digital Divide), Getting rid of a nagging sense of isolation among students and teachers, improve quality of teachers.
d. Technical Training
e. Enhanced role for Maseno University
4. Health: Secure local access to quality health services
5. Improve Social Life (improve Quality of Life): Requires improved income, and presupposes increased access to potable water (Water Harvest Project), improved diet/food among the people, improved shelter/clothing, increased access to electric power (hydro and solar), improved and widespread social amenities/leisure, enhanced networking opportunities for the youth and women and keep youth busy so as to distract them from many anti-social ways.
6. Innovation: in goods and services (music, pottery, tourism, etc)
7. Environmental/Disaster Management: focusing on our rivers, wetlands, Lake Victoria and other water sources and resources; our rocks; and paying attention to floods, soil erosion, and tree-cover.
8. CDF and related funds: To devolve CDF allocation to the sub-Location and to ensure broad-based participatory prioritization of sub-Location projects.
9. Kombewa 2037: To transform Kombewa not just into a model constituency headquarters, but the hub of our socio-economic and political lives from which development will visibly radiate to all corners of the constituency – including such centres as Akado, Daraja Mbili, Holo, Lela, Kaloka, Kolenyo, Kondik, Reru and Riat.
10. Leadership: As the new MP, to be the embodiment of the leader the constituency has in mind and can look up to. As the MP, to spearhead a new wave of confidence-raising across our local communities. To be the role model as motivator, energizer/catalyzer and galvanizer [ “Nyiso ni wanyalo tiyo gi wiwa ma walok ngimawa.”]
By way of conclusion, let us note, as Hardiman-Midgley (1982: 5) pointed out some two decades ago, that most social problems have their roots not in individuals' shortcomings but in “broader external conditions in society as a whole.” Furthermore, social problems undermine development, and will not disappear on their own without determined state intervention. Why state intervention? Because “while voluntarism and local self-help are to be encouraged, the social problems facing developing countries are of such magnitude and have their causes in conditions of such complexity that state intervention is required to deal with them effectively.” This is indeed in the spirit of social democracy, which ODM espouses.
[November 9, 2007]
NOTE: This document is posted for the record only. I had prepared it in early November 2007 for the campaign leading to ODM parliamentary nominations. I was seeking the party's nod for the Kisumu Rural parliamentary seat. However, just a day before the scheduled nomination exercise and at the very end of intra-party campaigns, it was announced in the media that ODM headquarters had given direct nomination to the incumbent, Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o. Everyone knew that he was facing stiff competition from six contestants. The announcement forced five out of the six to seek last-minute nomination in other parties, convinced that there was no way the incumbent was going to win in a straight fight. I was secured nomination as a candidate of Chama Cha Uzalendo (CCU), but my campaign maintained the same vision, mission and agenda.
For Kenya: A country and nation-state in which public policy serves the public interest, not private interest. A self-confident, assertive and united Kenya. A prosperous and respected Kenya.
For Kisumu Rural: An increasingly prosperous constituency characterized by sustainable social and economic development, and by the enthusiastic participation of all – women, youth and wazee – in the development effort. An electorate empowered to take its destiny into its own hands. An electorate once again optimistic and confident of the future.
MY MISSION:
To be a leader who leads from the front, and from the heart. To bring back hope and self-respect, and the respect of the nation, to my constituents. To represent them with courage and conviction. To give them the means “to fish,”so as to eliminate the need for handouts. To regenerate the community's social capital by way of new thinking and related activities. To be, in a word, a catalyst and an overcomer. At the centre of all our effort will be innovative Value Added Production (VAP) of goods and services, and a creatively structured synergy between Kisumu Rural and Kisumu City.
MY AGENDA/PRIORITIES/PROGRAMME OF ACTION:
MY Agenda -- The Main Problems I Propose to Prioritize and Tackle:
1.Poverty/Unemployment/Underemployment: Gross incomelessness.
2.Infrastructure: Underdeveloped and deteriorating
3.Education: Declining or stunted educational institutions in terms of physical facilities/amenities, equipment (including ICT) and staffing, and sub-par performance in national exams
4.Health: HIV/AIDS and Malaria pandemic; unplanned evolution of the public health sector
5.Social: The precarious lives of widows and orphans, as well as idle/isolated youth
6.CDF and related Funds: gross misuse and mis-allocation of funds, leading to lost opportunities and arrested futures
7.Leadership: Arrogant and neglectful leadership. For nearly forty years, the country's dominant political culture has been neglectful and at times even hostile to the poor. There is dire need for new, people-oriented leadership and, above all, new thinking – at the Constituency and Ward levels.
The Solutions [My Programme of Action]:
["Piny omewo, ji to odhier!” – The land is rich but the people are poor. Why are they poor? Many reasons. For one, they have not had strong and concerned leadership]
1. Nurturing of Income Earning/Generating Opportunities and Assets (To secure the present, for today's parents and out-of-school youth; a precondition for dongruok ma medore)
– Jobs, Self-employment (trade, craft skills, tools of trade, credit, backward and forward linkages, tourism, services)
“Employment gives the otherwise poor, the employed, the resources with which to overcome poverty – or keep it at bay. The higher the returns accruing from employment, the more distant the risk of poverty...” – Mauri Yambo
According to the World Bank, past experience shows that poverty is now best tackled by means of a three-pronged strategy: 1. Promoting Opportunity for Poor People. 2. Facilitating Their Empowerment. 3. Enhancing their Security.
– Revive agriculture; energize trade and markets; develop synergies.
– Focus on the Demand Side. Government should not just concentrate on Social Overhead Capital of the old kind: Roads, bridges, airports, dams, harbours. A new concept of SOC must be adopted which recognizes that mobilization and galvanization are key ingredients of progress. Institutions must be set up to generate critical mass in selected areas of socio-economic life.
- The fundamental goal is to put increasing amounts of hard-earned cash (and related assets) into the pockets, vibeti, accounts and other secure holdings of hard-working constituents, and to ensure that those assets grow and work for them.
2. Improved Infrastructure (rehabilitated, regularly maintained, expanded transportation and communication networks): roads, bridges, beaches, culverts, power lines, telephone lines, water pipelines, boreholes, etc.
3. Revolution in Education and Training [To secure the future, for the next generation and for posterity, and to enhance the prospects for sustainable development. This requires improved income. Paradoxically, however, years of schooling have a positive relationship with one's “income-earning ability” (see World Bank Policy and Research Bulletin of October-December 2000/January-March 2001, p. 1)]:
a. Focused programme of physical facility development: Improved design, use of a more durable mix of materials, maintenance plan.
b. Equipment: Laboratory Kits for Secondary Schools, Libraries, Books.
c. Performance: Establishing Centres of Excellence, ICT connectivity (Bridging the Digital Divide), Getting rid of a nagging sense of isolation among students and teachers, improve quality of teachers.
d. Technical Training
e. Enhanced role for Maseno University
4. Health: Secure local access to quality health services
5. Improve Social Life (improve Quality of Life): Requires improved income, and presupposes increased access to potable water (Water Harvest Project), improved diet/food among the people, improved shelter/clothing, increased access to electric power (hydro and solar), improved and widespread social amenities/leisure, enhanced networking opportunities for the youth and women and keep youth busy so as to distract them from many anti-social ways.
6. Innovation: in goods and services (music, pottery, tourism, etc)
7. Environmental/Disaster Management: focusing on our rivers, wetlands, Lake Victoria and other water sources and resources; our rocks; and paying attention to floods, soil erosion, and tree-cover.
8. CDF and related funds: To devolve CDF allocation to the sub-Location and to ensure broad-based participatory prioritization of sub-Location projects.
9. Kombewa 2037: To transform Kombewa not just into a model constituency headquarters, but the hub of our socio-economic and political lives from which development will visibly radiate to all corners of the constituency – including such centres as Akado, Daraja Mbili, Holo, Lela, Kaloka, Kolenyo, Kondik, Reru and Riat.
10. Leadership: As the new MP, to be the embodiment of the leader the constituency has in mind and can look up to. As the MP, to spearhead a new wave of confidence-raising across our local communities. To be the role model as motivator, energizer/catalyzer and galvanizer [ “Nyiso ni wanyalo tiyo gi wiwa ma walok ngimawa.”]
By way of conclusion, let us note, as Hardiman-Midgley (1982: 5) pointed out some two decades ago, that most social problems have their roots not in individuals' shortcomings but in “broader external conditions in society as a whole.” Furthermore, social problems undermine development, and will not disappear on their own without determined state intervention. Why state intervention? Because “while voluntarism and local self-help are to be encouraged, the social problems facing developing countries are of such magnitude and have their causes in conditions of such complexity that state intervention is required to deal with them effectively.” This is indeed in the spirit of social democracy, which ODM espouses.
[November 9, 2007]
NOTE: This document is posted for the record only. I had prepared it in early November 2007 for the campaign leading to ODM parliamentary nominations. I was seeking the party's nod for the Kisumu Rural parliamentary seat. However, just a day before the scheduled nomination exercise and at the very end of intra-party campaigns, it was announced in the media that ODM headquarters had given direct nomination to the incumbent, Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o. Everyone knew that he was facing stiff competition from six contestants. The announcement forced five out of the six to seek last-minute nomination in other parties, convinced that there was no way the incumbent was going to win in a straight fight. I was secured nomination as a candidate of Chama Cha Uzalendo (CCU), but my campaign maintained the same vision, mission and agenda.
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