reuters
Nairobi, August 20: As disputes raged over the presidential results from Kenya’s election last week, a little-noticed democratic revolution blossomed in the layer of government directly underneath.
Kenyans sent home 25 out of 47 county governors, upholding a strong anti-incumbency tradition and warning that voters would turn out failing local leaders after power and money devolved to the counties in the last election cycle.
Anti-corruption campaigners – and voters – hope the new taste of direct accountability will eventually help curb corruption in East Africa’s biggest economy and weaken the grip of parties that rely on ethnic voting blocs.
“Party doesn’t matter. We want performers,” said Ann Wairimu, 48, a real estate agent in Nairobi, where dirty water and open sewers caused a recent cholera outbreak.
Voters threw out Nairobi’s governor, Evans Kidero, for failing to deliver public services. His replacement, Mike Sonko, is famed for his flamboyant fashion and high profile social projects. When not sporting a sequined hat, he is often photographed leading teams shovelling piles of rubbish from the streets.
“Kidero sat in his office and did not deliver anything to the common man,” Wairimu said. “Sonko actually goes to those poor communities and concerns himself with things like sewage systems and garbage collection.” From independence from Britain in 1963 until the 2013 elections, Kenya’s budget and social services were managed – and mismanaged – by the President and a small coterie of ministers.
An incumbent president never lost an election, and three out of four presidents have come from the Kikuyu ethnic group, fuelling resentment and ethnically based politics. Years of one-party rule followed by a series of flawed elections led voters to despair that they were helpless to combat corruption.
Then a 2010 constitution devolved around 20 per cent of the budget to 47 new counties, also handing them responsibility for basic healthcare, early education, local roads, and other infrastructure.
Suddenly taxpayers lived next to the people who were spending – or stealing – their money. Since then, a couple of local politicians have had their houses or cars set alight by angry voters.