This is the fifth in a series of articles that will review and comment on surveys related to the August 2022 general election, providing analytical tools to enable the reader to assess their credibility and potential impact.
Wherever there is violence, it seems Ruto’s name features. It began with the infamous YK’92. Then came Kiambaa and Ruto’s trip to The Hague. Soon, witnesses started disappearing or being found murdered. Ruto’s name keeps cropping up in other cases.
The IEBC delivered a flawed election marred by irregularities in 2017. As reports emerge of strange goings-on at the commission, what hope is there for a free and fair election in 2022?
Economic issues have taken centre stage in this campaign season, a shift in focus that should be celebrated even though both Azimio La Umoja and Kenya Kwanza are making promises they may not be able to afford to keep and will likely find it hard to deliver.
Electing members of parliament who understand and fully exercise their power can make for a law-making organ whose potency is incomparable to that of the executive.
With the stranglehold on polity and economy, characteristic of South Asian politics, the Rajapaksas used a toxic glue of racism and religious enmity to bind the Sinhala majority to their political will, which expectedly misfired.
Unfairness in tax collection fundamentally erodes the social contract between an individual and their government because the provision of basic services is jeopardized when the affluent find legal loopholes to avoid paying taxes.
The political liberation and economic emancipation of Africa cannot be a one-country affair. By necessity, it must be a pan-African movement with international solidarity.
Politics is supposed to be about servant leadership but neither Odinga nor Ruto carry themselves with the gait of servant leaders. Both expect and demand power. Neither is a reformist candidate. Both represent continuity.
Rwanda has been praised for its economic achievements but political persecution and human rights violations remain rife in the country.
Across Africa projects of capitalist extraction still ensure evictions, mass expropriations of land and misery. Today the government of Tanzania wants to expand the space for luxury tourists to enjoy picturesque views of nature – a wildlife fantasy of nature supposedly untouched by humans. Laibor Kalanga Moko and Jonas Bens argue that justification for the dispossession of indigenous communities has shifted from “economic development” to “wildlife conservation”.
While conservation NGOs have condemned the violence meted out against the Maasai in Loliondo, they do not want herders or subsistence hunters on land that they seek to control and profit from and will fight to retain their power with the immense resources at their disposal.
