Kenya’s ‘Primitive Democracy’ and my Reflections on Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History’

 

In 2019, Kenyan rapper King Kaka caused an internet storm with his hit “Wajinga nyinyi” in which he castigated the corrupt as well as the stupidity of voters who according to him and rightly so, elect the same culprits. One of the key people mentioned was the current Kirinyanga Governor Anne Waiguru who despite her stay in government having been clouded by serious corruption allegations turned out victorious in the gubernatorial election. She threatened to sue the rapper for defamation but that never materialized although some like Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi had already offered to represent King Kaka pro bono. Today, Waiguru is on the right side of Abdullahi’s politics so just like many others, nobody seems to care about her past.

Dr. David Ndii recently claimed that Dr. William Ruto was not running on an anti-corruption platform and those who think otherwise should look elsewhere. The elephant in the room would be how Ruto will deliver his economic agenda in a corrupt system but those with mega platforms to ask Ndii the right questions like Professor Makau Mutua have chosen the path of Miguna Miguna by resorting to insults.

In the 2013 presidential debate, Martha Karua decided to take on Uhuru Kenyatta over massive land ownership by the Kenyatta family but Raila Odinga came to his rescue by asserting that he was an “innocent inheritor”. Why Raila shutdown Karua’s onslaught still baffles me! It is either Raila was naïve on the debate stage which going by his political experience is not a convincing argument or he was holding the line for the status quo.  Karua was silenced but Ruto was listening. He has gone ahead to define this year’s election as a battle between ‘hustlers’-those who are not well off and the ‘dynasty’- the ‘innocent’ inheritors of power and wealth.

The question of land is once again back on the campaign trail. Ruto’s rumored running mate Rigathi Gachagua has asked the president to explain what happened to the land the freedom fighters died for but having been on Uhuru’s side for that long, he is not seen as the right person to be asking such questions. That aside, why do I refer to Kenya as a ‘primitive democracy’.

From his classic book the “The End of History”, Francis Fukuyama opines that;

“While some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal democracy, and others might lapse back into other, more primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved on.”

To Fukuyama, liberal democracy is the last stage in the evolution of political systems and any other form of governance that comes before it is simply primitive. He adds that although authoritarian states have the capacity to deliver high rates of economic growth, the world’s most developed countries are also the most successful democracies. In Taiwan and South Korea, the economic success achieved under authoritarianism eventually gave way to democracy. This how Fukuyama puts it;

“A modernizing dictatorship can in principle be far more effective than a democracy in creating the social conditions that would permit both capitalist economic growth and, over time, the emergence of a stable democracy”

The success of the democratic transition of Taiwan and South Korea forms a key part of my argument that although Kenya is doing better than its peers in matters liberal democracy, the previous systems of governance that Fukuyuma calls primitive did not deliver the economic growth necessary for a stable democracy. The challenge of our time is how do we practice democracy in poverty? How do you tell a voter who has gone without food that there is hope in a polling station? How do you drive your way to campaign in areas without accessible roads if you cannot afford a helicopter?

Since our kind of democracy bears the same markings as those of the primitive systems that Fukuyama labors to explain, we can only come to the conclusion that our democracy is just as primitive. In this primitive democracy, the voter will have to be bribed to go to that polling station, the victorious will have to recover their ‘investment’ by looting which denies the very voter a path to prosperity and the cycle continues. This type of democracy will possibly reign until perhaps as Fukuyama writes;

“All countries undergoing economic modernization must increasingly resemble one another: they must unify nationally on the basis of centralized state, urbanize, replace traditional forms of social organization like tribe, sect, and family with economically rational ones based on function and efficiency, and provide for the universal education of their citizens. “

Tribal mobilization will still be a leading factor in the upcoming general elections. Those from Luo Nyanza will not be allowed to question Raila and the same applies to Ruto and Uhuru in their Kalenjin and Kikuyu backyards respectively. Although the Kikuyu are pushing back against Uhuru’s choice of Raila, it is easy to trace that resistance mainly to the demonization of the Odingas over the years in the region and as one of Uhuru’s kin has reminded us, ‘Senior Kenyatta’s political oaths’. The rest of the tribes have struggled to have serious kingpins largely due to their small numbers. The educated, who Fukuyama expects to exercise freedom of thought remain at the forefront of pushing this tribal agenda.

Back to the issue of corruption, Kenya has the laws and institutions but a moral bankruptcy. Elections alone are not a cure for corruption, something needs to be done about bureaucrats, the police, lawyers and judges. After that, it should be a moral obligation of every citizen to try and do the right thing! However, one thing I learnt from my Master’s thesis which covered the concept of a developmental state is that it is still possible for a state to develop economically with minimal levels of corruption – Taiwan and South Korea did it.