By P W
The glamorous and expensive launch of Jubilee Party is the final clowning of patronage -state capture politics.
Upon its falsely alluring launch in 2013, Jubilee Coalition had three pillars: Uwazi (Transparency), Uchumi (Economy) and Umoja (Unity). Each of the three is in tatters and the dream of Kenyans toward these pillars has waned and on death bed.
The move is insensitive to the plight of Kenyans who have been subjected to poor economic policies by Jubilee.
Today in 2016, as Jubilee deploys billions of shillings from unverified sources for political merry-making and pre-election posturing, it is not lost on the rest of us that businesses are folding up, prices of essential commodities are skyrocketed, tax burden has increased ten fold, and a youth crisis is brewing as millions of young Kenyans remain jobless.
This thieving kleptocracy is disdainfully making a mockery of the plight of poor and desperate Kenyans that it has impoverished when it engages in such mindless splendour against the backdrop of a struggling economy and an unbearable foreign debt.
The state should be doing everything possible to develop economy and create the necessary conditions to improve national welfare. So far, on the matter of the economy, there is an opaqueness of policies as well as confusion and vacillation about the direction in which the nation is heading.
The legislature is now a toy of the executive while the judiciary has turned out to be a complete disaster. Civil society remains intimidated while the mainstream media are state puppets leaving individual blighers at the mercy of state security.
The state of the economy has reached crisis proportions. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment have been on the rise since the last quarter of last year to date. A critical economic infrastructure like power supply has also been deplorable, against all promises and expectations. Cost of living has risen in the face of increased electricity and fuel prices, and living standards for the majority of the people are at the lowest.
This Jubilee government has not just lost good will, expectation and trust of young people but has also lost much general support since inception. In recent times, members of the administration have carried on with so much haughtiness and lack of sensitivity in their responses to the complaints of Kenyans about their pains.
Many have been insensitive, self-righteous and indignant as they respond to issues demanding caution, understanding and compassion. That’s when they are not heaping all blames for their obvious failings on the Opposition, something Kenyans have become weary of hearing.
This government would appear to have taken the people’s loyalty for granted by the indecorous utterances of its officials.
Besides leading the country away from democratic rule of state law and back to authoritarianism, Uhuru Kenyatta did not change a massively corrupt economic and political system that is based on patronage and state capture.
Jubilee government has succeeded in ensuring the country will remain stunted by mismanagement, institutionalised tribalism, corruption, and abysmal rule of law. Jubilee government has seen massive erosion of character and capacity of Constitution of Kenya 2010 to transform the country.
Jubilee Coalition is hollowing out of the capacity of the democratic state which must be reversed urgently and vigorously. Corruption, unaccountable leadership, greed, crony capitalism, patronage and rent-seeking politics all exercised at the expense of people welfare improvement and achieving social justice.
Jubilee government has demonstrated outrageous phenomenal of direct use and abuse of public authority to consume and distribute the spoils of the state along private channels and use and abuse of access to public authority to facilitate private capital accumulation.
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