EUPHORIA OF REGIME CHANGE LIKE THAT IN USA DROVE THE KENYAN GOVT TO DINE WITH COMMUNISTS FOR AID!

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EUPHORIA OF REGIME CHANGE LIKE THAT IN USA DROVE THE KENYAN GOVT TO DINE WITH COMMUNISTS FOR AID!

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Barack Obama the President-elect has promised Americans a lot of govt directed programmes. The euphoria on US citizens and hope is palpable!

They expect a lot from the upcoming administration and they have good reasons to because the campaign for the new govt was based on setting things right for Joe the Plumber and his ilk.

We in KENYA had a similar situation after the 2002 opposition win in ballot numbers that were unprecedented in kenyan history.

A very unpopular regime was shown the door in the most humiliating defeat after 24 years in power.

Several analogies can be drawn with the recent win of Democratic party in America.

First,the Kanu presidential candidate and a son to the late president Jomo Kenyatta was a political novice plucked from his family's business to entice young people who were increasingly joining the opposition politics to the chagrin of the then incumbent govt.

Novice in politics as he was,Uhuru kenyatta was meant to potray the govt commitment to change which was also being peddled by the opposition.

His candidacy was a demonstration of the incumbents commitment to delink itself from its stinking past which was ridlled with grand corruption and human rights issues emanating from its brutal crackdown of multiparty adherents who were treated as dissidents.

The propping up of novice Uhuru kenyatta to consolidate the youth vote for the govt was not much unlike the surprise nomination of Sarah Palin to consolidate the conservative vote as a running mate of John McCain who was also being bogged down by his close association with the unpopular govt of President George Bush.

This particular strategy does not seem to work either here in KENYA or USA because both parties that employed it were dunked in the elections-KANU lost and so did the Republican party in America.

But the biggest headache with these sort of historic wins in elections is the high expectations that the citizenry places on the winning team or party.

Mwai Kibaki's team had promised universal free primary education during its campaigns. The citizens expected no less in January just two weeks after the inauguration of the new govt! This draws paralells with the Democratic party's promise of universal health care. Come January 20th,and the new administration will have to show the way forward even before they have collected a dime of their proposed tax raises from the wealthy Americans.

In the case of the Kenyan govt,donors who had pledged to loosen their purses after the regime change stalled. They wanted the new govt to clean up corruption first.

This put the new govt which had banked on the goodwill of donors to see it thro its motley of development programmes and revival of contracting economy in a dangerous collision course with the citizenry that was impatient to see change in their lives after throwing out a bad govt.

They had looked upon their new wheelchair driven messiah cum western trained economist cum president to lift them from the depths of despair in their everyday living struggle to put bread on the table.

For a moment,it looked like he had no otherwise other than to disappoint them.

Then came that Messianic awakening that is normally fuelled by pragmatism.

He called in the Communist China to come to Kenya's aid.

Kenya,a country that had been a darling of capitalist west for over 40 yrs was overnight dining with COMMUNISTS!

The west was exsperated.

But kenyan decision was informed thro practical reasons of trying to stem the frustration of its citizens by letting them down on their high expectations.

Thank God KENYA had this awakening long time ago.

With the financial melt down now in the west,our long time friends would be hard pressed to want to pass any aid to KENYA when they need every buck at home to bail out their flagging economies.

But one good lesson can be learnt from these bitter lessons.

Ideology is good for the soul. It helps us establish our focus and identity when times are good.

But pragmatism is what capitalists and communists need to keep this world going notwithstanding their different ideological back grounds.

When America goes to China for bail out money for its domestic industries, then am sure that this world is slowly crawling to peace.

Is communism good for the world?

I would not know. I have been a capitalist all my life even with Chinese aid coming to Kenya.

Its hard for me to change now but its not hard to tolerate everyone else in this world.

America thro its first historic election of a Black man for president has a lot to learn from itself and from the rest of the world.

And so does everybody else.

PROFARMS
NAIROBI,KENYA