Coalition Politics: What is in stake for women?

Publication date: September 11, 2007

Since 2002, Kenyan political scene has witnessed realignments of political parties with the sole purpose of winning elections. in the last general elections, a number of parties including, Democratic Party of Kenya(DP), National Party of Kenya(NPK) and Ford Kenya teamed up to form the hitherto National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK).

The coalition was consequently joined by Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to form a grand coalition, National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). The merger culminated into a win that saw the independence party KANU relegated to the opposition benches.

Today as coalitions towards 2007 elections begin to take shape, ACWICT staff, Florence Koros and Boniface Manyala spoke to Onyango Oloo, a social and political analyst on the role of coalitions in Kenyan politics and what is in it for women.

ACWICT writer: What are the dynamics of coalition politics?                                          

Onyango Oloo: Coalition politics has to be seen in a historical context.  For a very long time Kenya was a de jure single party State, many people think the advent of political pluralism was with the repeal of section 2(a) in December 1991; to the contrary, that was a culmination of a process that commenced in the 60s in earnest. Kenya used to be officially a multi party State right up to 1969, although it was de facto between 1969 and 1982, but on paper, it was still a multi party State.

Coalitions emerged from the late 50s when various parties got together to form KANU and KADU from a culmination of various groupings. The history of coalition politics has been there for a long time.

Then came 2002 when there was national consensus to do away with the 39-year-old KANU. Right now we have the so called Kibaki friendly parties teaming to face the two “Orange” parties. Which are in essence coalitions of persons from different parties altogether.

Today as we speak, it is impossible for a single political party to ascend to power on its own. Another thing, Parties in Kenya, ideologically are not political parties, they are political vehicles to power. They are regional and ethnic based. And Coalitions the world over are bases where people negotiate on sharing political power on largely an ethnic arithmetic, but, and this is a big BUT, there’s genuine clomour from wananchi for real change.

AW: What role is played by the ordinary Kenyan in this arrangement and how does the ordinary citizen get to benefit?

OO: Ordinary or not ordinary, Kenyans have united on several issues, they want transparency and accountability, they want the fight against corruption taken a notch higher and this is irrespective of whether they are from Moyale, Migori or Mombasa.

The agenda on the ground from where the electorate seat is what informs formations of coalitions. Part of the impetus to form coalitions comes from the Wananchi themselves.

There are two ways to it, there is coalition building from the mainstream political leaders as well as from the Wananchi, as was witnessed in 2002. It was almost the whole of Kenya united against KANU. What comes from the citizens will normally inform the demand for a genuine or even populist coalition, whatever they may be.

That is when we see people eventually jumping on the bandwagon that they think is popular and is likely to form the next government. In coalitions, serious political parties with constituencies on the ground can never be duped. The likelihood of being duped would be very remote. In healthy democracies, however, coalitions are formed after the general election.

AW: When we talk about women leadership, and women, who of course form a large part of the Kenyan voters, how can women reap the best from these coalitions, or even recognize the coalitions that would be beneficial to them (women)?

OO: First of all a big percentage of women, if statistics are anything to go by, would be very comfortable voting for a woman as President. On both sides of the political divide there are a lot of women, from around the country who already claim stake as leaders in their own right. And their are many women aspirants all over the country who are either leading in opinion polls or are very close to the incumbent in terms of popularity.

But the reality of politics, just like many things, is that we still live in a very patriarchal and sexist society. Take the example of Julia Ojiambo, Kalonzo has a problem with Raila, he walks into Julia’s party and says “I am now a member”, presidential nominations for their party  is held and Julia who should be the automatic running mate is now being sidelined! This to me reflects the historical disrespect for women. She is being marginalized even after accommodating Kalonzo in her political party. The ethnic arithmetic currently seems to drive coalition politics.

If you go to Nyanza for example, there are lots of women who aspire to go to parliament, but they are dealing with an “old boys club”, keepers of the “Agwambo” flame, how people negotiate in that kind of struggle is rather vexing. Look at what happened on the debate for 50 seats for women, what shocked me apparently was the violent opposition, not from men, but from women including role models in women leadership.

Importantly, there has to be a lot of negotiation and sometimes making a lot of practical compromise. Also, the fact that a person is a woman and a leader doesn’t mean necessarily that she is championing the women’s interest. The classic historical example is Margaret Thatcher who in her two terms as a Prime Minister in Britain had only two women in her cabinet. And some of her policies had devastating consequences for women.

So we must distinguish between a woman leader and a woman who is championing and propagating women’s rights and building coalitions for women. What has to happen is a lot more negotiations within women and amongst women. We see on the other context a lot of women running against each other, which is their democratic right, but there is also what is called thinking strategically in order to unseat the incumbent who in this case may be a man.

And also the question is, within the existing coalitions, what form of space is there for women? Like for example, why should “The Pentagon” constitute all men? Why?

Look at President Mwai) Kibaki and his friendly parties; it is all a question of “backroom boys.” Women as a constituency must be able to determine where they want to go in terms of alliances.

There must be a deliberate national mosaic that is representative of all women from the disabled to the Masaai woman in a “shuka” which should not be tokenism. But even as we do that, we should interrogate whether the said women have the issues of fellow women’s rights at heart.