Ruto’s angry outburst provokes debate on leaders’ temperament
Deputy President William Ruto.
A viral video of Deputy President William Ruto giving a dress-down to a man who shouted at him during a rally in Vihiga has opened the debate on the anger management capability of leaders.
The Azimio coalition has been hitting out the DP over the incident and have taken political advantage of it, telling the electorate not to elect the UDA presidential candidate, saying he is too angry to manage the affairs of the country.
Even as his political opponents basked in glory over the incident, the Deputy President took the criticism in his stride and changed the conversation about the anger, saying he is too angry because of the suffering of the people.
“Those in Azimio claim that I am angry. But I am telling you that they are not angry because they don’t understand the challenges the ordinary citizens are going through,” he said while campaigning in Nyamira.
Emotional intelligence
Azimio presidential running mate Martha Karua was among the high-ranking leaders who cautioned the public against electing DP Ruto, saying he lacks emotional intelligence, temperament and integrity.
"Some of them are full of anger and they want to be elected. Let someone go and tell them that Kenyans are angrier because of the cost of living," Ms Karua said.
However, communication expert Barrack Muluka, writing an opinion piece in one of the dailies, Saturday pointed out that Ms Karua has no moral authority to speak on someone else’s anger issues as she is also a victim of the same.
“I doubt that Ms Karua could stand on any moral high ground to question anyone’s emotional compartment. In her own way, she has anger issues which she is unable to handle in public,” Mr Muluka said.
Psychologist Silas Kiriinya says anger portrayed by politicians is a sign of something that is underlying and just a tip of the iceberg.
Sign of losing
“The anger can also be a sign of losing or there is a sense of hatred and a particular leader feels this is the only opportunity to speak out about it,” Dr Kiriinya said.
He also pointed out that due to rigorous campaigns prompt fatigue that can cause anger.
“Fatigue is a prime candidate of irritability, which then translates into anger.”
Dr Kiriinya said display of anger is also used by leaders to endear themselves to the people, thinking that by speaking angrily, the people will be psychologically moved to think the candidate understands their problems.
Emotional maturity
ODM chairman John Mbadi told the Nation that leadership calls for temperament management and emotional maturity.
“Anger management tells a lot about the character of a leader. There are people who are dictators and don’t want to be challenged, but there are also people in the crowd who will not take it when they are lied to, so, as a leader, you must know how to deal with that,” he said.
“The DP should have ignored that person that shouted at him, but what he did, he was essentially telling his supporters to deal with the person. Leaders must realise that they have fanatical supporters who can end up doing regrettable things on their behalf.”
Not unique to Kenya
Heckling and the angry responses that follow are not unique to Kenya.
In any democracy across the world, politicians often get heckled, though the consequences of politicians’ reactions vary. In the US, for instance, former presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George Bush are among top-ranking politicians who have faced heckling, same as Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney, and John McCain.
The public figures have reacted differently, from Ms Obama, who rebuked her heckler (“Listen to me, or you can take the mike, but I’m leaving”) to Mr McCain, who threw a dig (“Thanks to the First Amendment, even jerks are allowed to speak in America”).
In Germany, researcher Lena Masch in 2020 released a book explaining how expressions of anger by politicians contribute to the judging of a person’s leadership skills.
“Electoral candidates may alter their emotional behaviour strategically during election campaigns as a means of gaining voters’ support. Hence, this study investigates empirically how expressions of anger affect leadership evaluations,” reads the book’s blurb.
Vote choices
Ms Masch’s book, titled The Impact of Emotional Messages on Civic Attitudes, focused Angela Merkel, Gregor Gysi, and Sigmar Gabriel.
“Emotional expressions such as anger can shape the way politicians are perceived and may even spill over into the evaluation of political parties. There is a potential for these effects to influence vote choices in increasingly polarised societies,” she writes.
But the results vary.
In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election in the US, Mr Trump was abrasive when dealing with hecklers and this helped propel his image of a no-nonsense man who was determined to “drain the swamp”.
He rebuked one man in a May 2016 rally by saying: “He can't get a date, so he's doing this instead.”
Approaches to heckling
Experts in political temperament recommend various approaches to heckling, and one of them was shared with the Washington Post by Mr Chris Lehane in 2013. Mr Lehane used to be an advisor to president Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Mr Lehane said reacting angrily does not help. He advised politicians to cite the Constitution and say: “The First Amendment (on freedom of expression) is a great thing, isn’t it? Let’s hear it for the First Amendment.”
Then the crowd would roar, drowning the heckler’s voice, and then the speaker would continue.
Mr Keith Fields, a comedian and the author of How to Handle Hecklers, writes that one way to handle hecklers is to say, “Pardon me?”
“It puts the spotlight on the heckler, and they usually don’t know what to do next,” he says.
