Elections are the cornerstone of any multi-party democracy. They provide the avenue through which voters determine their leadership. In a parliamentary democracy such as Kenya, most candidates seeking political office do so through nomination by political parties or run as independents.  

It is an open secret that despite parties promising candidates credible nominations, the converse is consistently true. For decades, party primaries in Kenya have been a shameful but generally condoned mockery of the democratic process, often with dire consequences. The infamous mlolongo queue voting system of 1988 was blatantly engineered to defeat the cause of democracy by knocking out candidates then perceived to be opposed to the Nyayo regime.  

It has always been pointed out that protests against the mlolongo system planted the seed for the pro-reform movement that yielded the return to multi-party democracy but stories of subsequent party primaries have been sordid. Indeed, party nominations have been the theatre for the most grotesque political conmanship, betrayal and hypocrisy. 

After hoarding the hopes of various candidates, who invest a fortune in campaigns, party mandarins hand out tickets to their cronies, relatives and even concubines after raking in millions of shillings in bribes and other favours. The result is shattered dreams, lost investment and loss of faith in institutions that are supposed to inspire public confidence and promote democratic ideals including fair competition. 

This partly explains why the modes for conduct of party nominations remain shrouded in opaque methods such consensus and use of a delegate system that is audaciously skewed in favour of entrenched interests at the expense of fair competition. Already, there is an uproar in the key political parties, especially Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), after its leadership resolved to issue direct tickets to certain candidates, locking out their rivals who were ready for primaries too late into the election calendar in a manner that was calculated to frustrate their ambitions. 

This is not only immoral but also a shameless assault on the democracy that the leaders of the culprit political parties purport to champion.  Being the instruments around which political power is attained and deployed, citizens retain a legitimate right to demand decency and responsibility in the management of political parties.  

Critically, political parties must be accountable to the people because their activities are funded by taxpayers. We understand the challenges that parties face in conducting primaries, , but these cannot be perennial excuses for political conmanship, deceit and indecency.