Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Politics can be as ambivalent, just like the relationship between politics and the media in a democracy.
On one end, politicians must serve the interest of the people, while on the other, the process of getting the power to lead means they pursue selfish interest at the expense of the citizenry.

The pursuit of their own interest, garbed in populist rhetoric, is almost always deceitful and against the very interest of the citizens.

The 2022 election was very big on issues that were of public interest, but clearly painted a picture of right or wrong being a function of personal political interest.

Today, a look at the projects being launched and the positions taken by the establishment bring back echoes of deceit and rallying of the masses to win at all cost.

Many Jubilee projects, initiatives and policies that were demonised to rally the masses against the government are practically all this regime is busy implementing.

The dispute over giving Kenyatta University land to World Health Organisation that was vehemently opposed by the then opposition, and situated within an emotive context to rally the masses against the government, is a good example.

The deal is back and WHO is poised to build a regional hub that will position Kenya as a world regional emergency hub and training centre. The memory of Covid-19 and the vaccine colonialism by powerful countries is still fresh in our minds and renders the need for the WHO facility in Kenya quite urgent.

It is also a reminder that President Uhuru Kenyatta had seen far and even though campaign messaging targeted him negatively, we cannot fault the current regime for doing the right thing today.
No one can ever be wrong doing the right thing and it’s not too late to address the many challenges affecting the poor.

Loans and taxes were also bandied as very critical issues in the last elections. Today, we know that demonisation of loans and high taxes during the campaigns was not in the interest of the public, but a ploy to win the elections – a political masterstroke that is coming back to bite. We are not only taking loans, but doing so with an unprecedented appetite.

There are serious indicators of what can potentially take this country to a solid economic state, especially at the microeconomic level. We talked fertilisers and demonised subsidies but today we are looking at paying farmers in foreign countries through a decree to import yellow maize, ostensibly to mitigate food shortage and lower the cost of living.

Some of these happenings are so haphazard and symptomatic of political rhetoric whose bigger picture is blurred, to say the least.

Seems like after the political rhetoric of rallying the masses to win we are yet to embark on delivering.
But there are glimmers of hope. The establishment of industrial parks and the Hustlers Fund can be an economic game changer.

In my native Migori for instance, both the national and county governments have invested in an industrial park somewhere in between Suna West and Nyatike constituencies. However, not much has been done to identify Migori’s strengths in production that would benefit from the presence of this industrial park.

Maybe Trade Moses Kuria, his Cooperatives & Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises counterpart Simon Chelugui and governors should have a conversation around research-based injection of resources in the form of grants and loans to SMEs from the Hustlers Fund in counties where the industrial parks have been established.
— The writer is a PhD candidate in political communication