Grandiose poll promises not new

On Tuesday this week, I lined up for almost two hours to cast my vote for my preferred candidate for the presidency and other electoral positions.

In my case, as I had indicated earlier in this column, I was only interested in picking the person who would occupy the State House and form the next government, mainly because I was voting against an individual who I felt was wrong for the job but who had, somehow, convinced my fellow countrymen and women that he was the only one who would lift them out of poverty.

The second person I voted for – against the grain – was my next ward representative (MCA) because I know his community service credentials.

In the end, I am sure I will be vindicated, one because my MCA clinched it as an independent candidate, and secondly because the person who Mr Wafula Chebukati may finally announce as the winner featured prominently on my ballot paper.

That is the beauty of democracy. One can cast a protest vote and give it meaning instead of going with the herd instinct.

Impressive manifesto 

However, all this is beside the point. What is more important is what the person who clinches the presidency intends to do with the awesome mandate and power he will have been given by the majority of voters.

All four presidential candidates presented impressive manifestos, full of pledges, promises and platitudes.

All of them sought to convince Kenyans that their platform of change was the only one that would make their lives better and healthier.

However, other forces were put into place meant to capture the imagination and emotions of the greatest number, and, unfortunately, they included fine-tuned demagoguery, populism, catchy but meaningless sloganeering, as well as tribal and regional calculations.

What most of the presidential contenders may have failed to acknowledge was that they were really saying nothing new.

In 2008, former President Mwai Kibaki came up with a blueprint known as Vision 2030 whose main objective was to transform Kenya into a “newly industrialising, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030 in a clean and secure environment”.

It was a programme with inspirational possibilities under three main pillars – economic, social and political.

One of the fruits of the economic pillar is visible today in the form of infrastructure development.

The highways and bypasses that have been built since are a testament to the efficacy of the vision, though other pledges like support for the informal sector, job creation and raising the country’s gross domestic product to 10 per cent per year have not been realised.

At the beginning of his second term, President Uhuru Kenyatta came up with the Big 4 Agenda, which was meant to whittle down and concretise the pillars of Vision 2030 into deliverables within five years. 

The main items in the plan were to ensure food security for all Kenyans, affordable housing for those without decent shelter, implement universal health coverage and encourage local manufacturing through tax and other incentives, thus creating thousands of jobs.

It wasn’t to be. These noble aims were effectively undermined by two forces – corrosive corruption, especially in the health sector, and the infernal virus, Covid-19, which visited and diverted funds meant for their implementation to other uses.

However, one cannot quite say the result was utter failure. At least the Jubilee administration did continue with Kibaki’s infrastructure development though at a rather stiff price in terms of a high foreign debt burden. 

The road network today is the envy of many an African country, although the heavy carping about the wrong priorities does tend to spoil the party.

The incontestable conclusion is that the Big 4 Agenda was effectively stillborn, especially in the areas of job creation, universal healthcare and food security.

What we have now is a hodgepodge of measures that have left many Kenyans utterly disillusioned, which is why they have been keen to punish the outgoing administration, arguing that it is solely to blame for the soaring cost of living.

Decent housing 

And here is the crux of the matter. On Tuesday, 12 million Kenyans voted for change in the hope that whatever party comes into power will alleviate their suffering.

The high cost of food is forcing many to sleep hungry, and they are not consoled by being told that war in some far-off lands could be responsible.

Those who have spent their entire lives in filthy urban slums were promised decent affordable houses, which were not forthcoming. Most of them cannot afford to fall sick and if they do, they are usually in the hands of God.

What I am getting at is that whatever promises have been made by the top contenders for the presidency, are not new; they are all in both Vision 2030 and the Big 4 Agenda. 

All the new government needs to do is to seek ways to implement the plans even if they have to come up with another grandiloquent term to describe the same programmes. And they can accomplish all these things using taxpayer money and not loans from foreign sources.

Mr Ngwiri is a consultant editor; [email protected].