Do elections matter?

The other night a friend commented that they weren't sure what difference it would make whether Labour or the Conservatives won the upcoming UK general election. My instinct was to disagree - I have what others might define as a tribal loyalty to the Labour party. I was a member for a couple of years, while in sixth form (and remember taking a girlfriend to a party meeting... hmm). It's the party that friends at home are active in, going as far as standing for parliament. But apart from that, I've not been active, beyond voting. In fact I voted Lib Dem in the last election, not being able to bring myself to vote for the particular Labour candidate, being one of a few hundred who could have been accused of 'letting the Tories in'. Maybe I'm not so tribal after all?

Well, there would be differences of course. But the Tories seem to have some difficulty in making clear what those differences would be, as if they're scared of offending anyone (on that score, they could always bring back Maggie and Norman Tebbit. Maybe not). Health and education have been Labour emphases, and in my humble opinion they've done a pretty good job. But I don't think a Conservative victory would bring great differences to most people's lives - it wouldn't stop Britain being Britain, the way it is to be a modern Brit. So actually, I found it difficult to disagree with my friend, and didn't - the point was valid.

Some people involved in politics might be aghast at what I've just agreed with. I'm not saying that the Tories' ideas and policies would be as good as Labour's. But I see that all the major political parties in the UK are led by people who generally believe in what they're saying, and, while they are not all necessarily people of the highest integrity, there's a real possibility that if they're not, they'll be found out, and end up in jail, like Geoffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken. Just deserts. The press and the courts can be good at holding these people accountable, as we've seen recently.

Any party that thinks it has a right to power, becomes too used to power, will move towards corruption. Maybe that's starting to happen with elements in the Labour party. Elections, while not always replacing a bad government with a better one, help to stop the rot. The British normally turn against a leader who seems too powerful, no matter what they've achieved. Witness Churchill's massive defeat at the polls in 1945. I think similar things happened with Thatcher and Blair, who were initially very popular.

More important than elections is the rule of law, but this is difficult to maintain if politicians think they are untouchable (and that tends to occur where there are no free elections), and can influence the courts [this seems to me to be the weak point in the otherwise commendable US constitution, with the highest judges being political appointments]. But here in Kenya, politicians seem to be above the law, and that only exacerbates the impunity on which corruption thrives. Sunny Bindra, my favourite Kenyan political commentator, has argued that political parties don't really exist here, just matatus, minivans of convenience for politicians to jump on and then jump down from. The alliances are temporary, not based on principles or values, but as vehicles for personal advancement.

At least we know what Labour, the Tories (and maybe even the LibDems) are meant to stand for, and choose, at least notionally, what we're voting for. Maybe the election won't make much difference, but the fact that it's there, that it's fought by groups that stand for something, that it means that judges can be secure in prosecuting politicians where necessary, makes a difference.

Sleeping through Gunfire, Waking up in Rain

It's been raining through the night, so I'm awake a little earlier than normal. The sound of the rain on the tin roof isn't exactly deafening, but it often wakes me up.

On Tuesday night however there was gunfire which woke two friends, living at least a kilometre apart. We slept right through - I don't think it was that close. I noticed in the morning that I'd forgotten to close one of our doors, with a reminder to self to check more carefully in future, reinforced when I heard about the gunfire. Funnily enough I still couldn't find out what had happened last night (with the gunfire - not the rain). Often bad news spreads very quickly.

A few months ago friends had robbers in the compound. When they got up, they realised that one of their doors was not only unlocked, but had been standing ajar all night. The robbers just hadn't noticed. I guess they were in a hurry.

Weakly constitutional

I'm no constitutional expert, but I wanted to follow up on my last posting here. In the meantime, Onesimus Online has written a thoughtful piece on wider issues of politics and faith, covering both the US and the issue of Kadhi courts here in Kenya. I don't think I'll do much more on this, but I'm still working out what I want to put on here. Ideas from one of my two readers appreciated...

Last week, various church leaders issued a press release dealing with barriers to their support to the proposed constitution. It's worthwhile seeing what they say:

CHAPTER ONE – SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE AND THE SUPREMACY OF THE CONSTITUTION

Article 8 provides that “There shall be no state religion”. However, previous draft constitutions had two important principles: One, “That state and religion shall be separate”; and, Two, “That the state shall treat all religions equally”. These provisions were deleted mischievously to accommodate parochial and sectarian interests in the draft constitution. We propose that Art 8 be amended to read as follows:

8 (1) State and religion shall be separate.

(2) There shall be no State religion.

(3) The State shall treat all religions equally.

Overall this seem quite sensible, though the analysis of why the section was revised seems unnecessary, especially the word 'mischievously'. It fits fine in a blog such as this perhaps, but church leaders accusing the politicians of being mischievous in an open statement doesn't feel quite... well, right to me. Not very diplomatic perhaps. True though, but never mind about that. But whether the editing was mischievous, I'm just not sure.

Hang on a minute, though. I just checked the draft constitution, and it already says all that. Are we working from different texts here? Moving on to the Bill of Rights (there's also a problem with numbering)

CHAPTER FOUR – THE BILL OF RIGHTS

Article 24 (4) provides that the Provisions of the Bill of Rights shall not apply to persons who profess the Muslim religion. The Church believes that no person should be denied or exempted from the provisions of the Bill of Rights whatsoever. We propose that Art 24 (4) is deleted.

Well, I was horrified to learn that the Bill of Rights wouldn't apply to Muslims. But the text of the draft constitution doesn't say this. It says:

The provisions of this Chapter on equality shall be qualified to the extent strictly necessary for the application of Islamic law to persons who profess the Muslim faith in relation to personal status, marriage, divorce and inheritance.

That is somewhat different; the press release is (deliberately?) misrepresentative of what the draft says, whether one likes it or not.

Jumping over sections on right to life and religious liberty, we come back to the Kadhi courts. Here's what the press release says:

CHAPTER 10 - JUDICIARY

Art 169 (b) provides that subordinate courts include Kadhis Courts. This is unacceptable. If the Proposed Constitution shall contain any reference to Kadhis Courts, we shall REJECT the draft in total. To avoid another rejection of the draft constitution at the referendum, we propose that Art 169 (b) be deleted. Providing for Kadhis Courts alone in a multi-religious society is a recipe for chaos, is repugnant to justice. In the interest of justice for all Kenyans and in consideration of the need for the Kenya to get a new constitution, the Church extends an olive branch with regard to the Kadhis Court.

In this regard, we propose that a new Article 160 (3) and (4) be inserted to read as follows:

(3) The constitution shall recognize the jurisdiction of religious courts in matters relating to personal status, marriage, divorce and inheritance where all parties subscribe to the same religion and agree to submit to the jurisdiction of such courts.

(4) No state resources shall be used for the establishment or the operation of any religious courts.

Art 170 provides for the jurisdiction of the Kadhis Court. We propose that Art 170 is deleted.

So... there's an olive branch which says that they can have Kadhi courts after all, but just don't mention the word...? And what's more worrying is there seems now to be a desire to establish other religious courts, which is something that the NCCK a few weeks ago was specifically campaigning against. Bizarre. True, the text concerning Kadhi courts doesn't specifiy it's only for Muslims who want to be subject to them, which would be an improvement.

I don't have anything else to say. Again, if I've got something wrong, correct me. But there'll be no need to accuse me of being mischievous.

Constitutional disquiet

While politicians are trying to agree on a new constitution for Kenya, Christians, or at least their leaders, seem to have united against two proposals. A Christian myself, I have some feelings of disquiet about this unity (I hope I'm not promoting disunity here, but a lack of debate often covers up weak arguments) and about some of its direction.

The biggest issue seems to be the place of 'Kadhi' (ie Muslim) courts in the constitution. Now, of course, if they are to exist, mentioning them in a constitution is a good thing. I'm not a specialist on these things, but they exist at the moment, and govern matters of civil law within the Muslim community, but don't have power of enforcement. And they've been around in Kenya for a very long time - it must be over 1,000 years. The NCCK, quite a respectable institution, is very much against them being mentioned in the constitution, and a leaflet I was handed used some nice-sounding (as opposed to rabble-rousing) arguments against them - the constitution and the laws of Kenya should apply to all people, regardless of creed. Fair enough. But one can (or will be able to) also register one's marriage as monogamous, or polygamous (under traditional practices), and no-one seems to be getting very agitated about that. So what's the difference between Muslim family law courts, and family arrangements made under traditional (ie neither Christian nor Muslim) practice?

To be honest, this smacks of intolerance and/or antagonism towards Muslims, hardly being a case of 'loving one's enemies' (the argument here is not that Muslims are an enemy, but that even if they were, Christians should love them). This whole hullabaloo doesn't make Christians look very loving in Muslim (or liberal) eyes. Why not respect the right of other communities to do as they see fit, where it doesn't impinge on others' liberty (or on the liberty of members of their own communities who don't want to be part of it)? I don't know of any case (and I'm open to correction) where a Kadhi court could trump Kenyan law. Thankfully, the NCCK, and other bodies, have not expressed their concern in terms of Christian theocracy, which would not disquiet, but terrify, me. But I've heard individuals talk that way once or twice.

The other issue is abortion, which is illegal here. The churches want to go further and have a clause in the constitution saying that life begins at conception. I guess there's a perception that if it's not in the constitution, it's not a very important law, which seems to me to be a misunderstanding of what a constitution is. But now the die has been cast, and if this clause doesn't get into the constitution (don't count on it), it will look like a defeat for the anti-abortion cause. So it's hard to stand down on that. Woops. It could be an example of the churches shooting themselves in the foot, and looking like they're trying to impose certain views on the whole nation - focusing more on judgement than love. Does the church want to be an enforcer, or a liberator?

To end I'll paraphrase a Kenyan Christian friend's Facebook update, which said that he wished that Kenyan Christians would spend as much time and effort battling corruption as they did battling the Kadhi courts. Amen to that!

Privileged information

One meets all sorts of people living here in Kenya. Well I do anyway - part of the ex-pat thing I guess. So I meet journalists, diplomats, pilots, professors, business people, many of whom have privileged contacts and information. And they tell you stuff. I'm a bit of a nosey parker, so I love knowing stuff, and would love to tell you everything I know, but well, I don't think they would want me to put what was said to me over a glass of wine or a cappuccino into my blog. But it helps build up a picture of what's going on here. And a coherent picture at that - whether Kenyan or ex-pat the same themes emerge - corruption at the highest (and lower) levels. Actually, it's quite similar to what one reads in The Nation, but without the concessions and 'alleged's that a newspaper needs to use to prevent being sued.

So, over the last few days I've learnt why one of the reasons electricity is so expensive here - emergency diesel generators, owned by well-connected people, are used pretty much the whole time, generating nice profits, leading such well-connected people to block major new projects which could provide more sustainable power generation. As a result Kenyan factories have to spend so much on electricity that they're not competitive on the international stage. A few people swindle, and the whole country suffers.

Any new project is seen by the well connected as a cash cow; funding for free education, which the UK government has, in my mind, rightly cut off; a new company testing petrol who charge several times as much as before (I heard about this, and the names behind it, several weeks ago, so am surprised it's only become news today) - in a piece of good news, it looks like the deal has been struck down; and corruption allegations related to building the Machakos technopolis. All 3 stories are dated today - plenty of this is going on.

So that's the bad news. A Kenyan friend (with good info) tells me that despite all this, things are getting better, innovating companies are, well, innovating, and there are many good signs. I think the fact that all this rot gets into the papers is good news itself. And I hope that other privileged information that I have, about senior politicans, will come to light, and justice will be done. That too would be good news.