The biggest challenge Kenya faces in its governance is the lack of honesty and integrity in its politicians. Indeed, most of the problems in Kenya emanate directly from failure of politicians to exercise honesty in both their dealings with each other, and with the public.

Honesty and integrity is no longer seen as an indispensable ingredient in leadership. What has replaced honesty and integrity in politics is political correctness, lies, justifications, and pontification. This has debased Kenya’s political space to a theatre of jingoism and grandstanding, with truth being the biggest casualty.

The credibility of politicians in Kenya is so diminished that even when they criticise their opponents, nobody takes them seriously. Everybody knows it is just hypocrisy. Politicians will support the worst wrongs as long as they are being done by their political camps.

Two cases powerfully illustrate this problem.

Firstly, the current political crises in the country is a non-crisis created purely through choreographing a make-believe situation of a supposedly stolen election. Intimidation, stand-offs and false political narratives then followed to push the country towards the desired effect.

To crown the narrative, the country is now being told that there is a “ceasefire.” Ceasefire from what? The dishonesty of the whole charade is mindbogging. It would be almost farcical if it did not have such tragic consequences.The second is the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the now notorious saga of dropping of political cases. The DPP has dropped case after case of high profile personalities allied to the Kenya Kwanza government.

The DPP claims that the cases were political, and that he was pressurized to charge these people before he had enough evidence to take the cases to court. The event that provided the impetus for him to drop these cases was a new Government taking office.

So, he was pressurized by politics to charge these people, and influenced by political events to drop the cases. If he had insisted on sticking to honesty and integrity in pursuit of his duties, those cases that were  purely politically instigated could never have found the light of day, as he would have rejected the pressure.

Further, even the coming of a new Government would then not have had any impact on the cases he had ‘correctly’ taken before the courts because he, again, would insist they are correctly before the courts and should run their course.

If constitutional offices which were established to insulate the holders against the well known foibles of political dishonesty and lack of integrity of politicians have been captured by the same malaise, there is no hope for Kenya.

The bottom line is, as along as the basic denominator for all governance discourse is dishonesty and lack of integrity, Kenya will never achieve its potential greatness and assume its rightful place in the comity of nations.

Which brings us back to the proposed Bipartisan Parliamentary discourse (that word again) that is set to start next week.

Even though the talks were birthed by a process soaked in political dishonesty, the negotiating teams can still rise above their origins and achieve greatness for the country. The talks can rise above their underpinning ecosystem and show Kenyans that it is possible for politicians to work honestly and with integrity for the good of the country.

One of the most critical success factors for this bipartisan team is that it must do away with the political correctness, lies, grandstanding and pontification of the political systems that have created it.

Indeed, one of the key items that must be on the table for discussion is honesty and integrity in the country’s political and public affairs. But if all they do is to transfer the noise on the streets into a boardroom, they will achieve nothing. And they will have squandered a great opportunity to lead the way out of the morass of dishonesty and lack of integrity in which the country’s body politic is drowning.

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