Change is coming, we are told. So is freedom. Or maybe freedom is already here? Politicians from both sides of Kenya’s current divide—from both the Azimio La Umoja and Kenya Kwanza alliances—are saying this. From Raila Odinga and William Ruto (the two main presidential rivals) downwards, candidates are insistent that after the elections Kenya will be transformed by an “economic revolution”. In Mombasa, for example, two rival candidates for the governorship each speak of “revolution”, as do other candidates and activists across Kenya. Why is this happening, and what does it mean?

Change is not a new message in Kenyan politics. Since the 1990s national elections have tended to pit political change against continuity. Continuity and stability was President Daniel arap Moi’s consistent offer, change and reform was the demand of those who struggled for multi-partyism and then for the new constitution. Odinga and the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) (including Ruto) promised that “change is coming” in 2007, while President Mwai Kibaki and the Party of National Unity (PNU) said kazi iendelee (let the work continue). In 2013 and 2017, Odinga, again the principal opposition leader, was the champion of change and Uhuruto (remember that word?) were the conjoined faces of continuity.

One of the many discombobulating things about the 2022 elections is that the polarity of the change/continuity contrast was first reversed and has now been eliminated. It was reversed when Ruto, after many years of alliances with dynasties—Moi, Odinga, Kenyatta—suddenly decided that they were a bad thing after all. He built a political message around economic inequality and the need for change that proved resonant; a success that should have been unsurprising, since years of a politics focussed on political reforms have not reduced the socio-economic gulf that runs through Kenyan society. Odinga, meanwhile, found that his rapprochement with Kenyatta had given him a political opportunity, but had also turned him into the candidate of the establishment. As a result, we were treated to the curious spectacle of Odinga, Kenya’s diehard radical, giving a pledge of “administrative continuity, while Ruto, after ten years at the top of government, assumed the guise of the insurgent.

Continuity apparently has its appeal—as past Kenyan elections have shown. But at a time of rapid inflation and economic hardship, its attraction may pall. A recent South Consulting opinion poll showed that a clear majority of respondents (64 per cent) think that the country is headed in the wrong direction and that people’s main concerns are economic (54 per cent identified the ‘High cost of living’ as their major concern). In such circumstances, promising continuity seems like a risky stance.  Sincere or not, Ruto’s campaign—propelled by a cost-of-living crisis that no one quite foresaw last year—has succeeded in dragging the political focus of the campaign onto economics. That is presumably why the Azimio campaign—now energised by the presence of Martha Karua as Odinga’s running mate—has also come to emphasise change, or even “economic liberation”, in recent weeks. Now Kenyan voters face two rival coalitions and presidential candidates, each promising change—and each casting that change as primarily economic.

How plausible these promises of change might be is another matter. At the core of Ruto’s campaign is the Hustler Fund—loans to enable Kenyans to realise their role as entrepreneurs. Opinion polls show that this is a popular promise—and it is true that for many years it has been argued that lack of capital holds back Kenyan farmers and businesspeople.

The Azimio economic promise for change is more diffuse. Odinga too says that change will mean easier access to credit—specifically for women. But the emphasis in the Azimio campaign is national unity and social welfare: better health care; better access to education (or maybe even free secondary and university education), and—the most novel aspect—social protection payments to two million households.

So there are real differences to the promise of change: differences that are about national policy. In terms of political reform it is surely true that—as John Githongo has eloquently explained—these elections are not about anything. But they are, at least potentially, about something—how to make Kenya more economically inclusive, as well as more prosperous. That policy difference has gone along with a reduction in openly ethnic politicking—at least, at the national level. Superficially, campaigns look quite similar to those of recent years: from the conspicuous extravagance of helicopters and huge billboards to the distribution of money to supporters, electoral behaviour seems to have become routinized. But so far there has been far less violence and tension in most of the country than in previous elections. Brazen attempts to mobilize on ethnic lines have become less common, at least in national politics – although at a local level there are still worrying cases of incitement, and there is still ample reason for concern over the danger of violence, particularly as candidates trade accusations about plans to rig the elections.

There are, of course, some serious questions about the affordability and viability of these promises. The Hustler Fund is hardly the first scheme to provide credit—there have been many previous ones, and they all tend to fall over, simply because administering lots of small loans is quite difficult (and can be open to abuse) and default rates tend to be high. Credit, after all, is another word for debt—and not all debts get paid. While the proposed fifty-billion-shilling-Hustler Fund is supposed to be revolving, it will only revolve if people pay back their loans. The bill for “Babacare” however, would also be very high—and that’s quite apart from the cost of the fuel and food subsidies introduced just before the election.

Which of these messages will win out in the context of campaigns that are simultaneously concerned with specific regional issues—the future of the port at the Coast, the implications of Uhuruto’s former alliance in Central and Rift Valley—is difficult to say in an election that is currently too close to call.  However, both campaigns are making promises they may not be able to afford to keep and would likely find it hard to deliver. Voters seem aware of this. Years of unfulfilled manifesto pledges have created something of a credibility deficit for government:  47 per cent of people in the poll mentioned above believed that, whatever the result of elections, there would be no change in Kenya.  Political reform and devolution were not easy to deliver; greater economic equality is likely to prove even more elusive.

While the proposed fifty-billion-shilling-Hustler Fund is supposed to be revolving, it will only revolve if people pay back their loans.

The two principals currently have their eyes on 9 August. But (like politicians elsewhere in the world) they might pause to think whether undeliverable promises may end up increasing the credibility deficit even further—with the longer-term effect of encouraging popular disaffection and undermining the political gains of the last few decades.

But—questions of affordability aside—we should probably celebrate the shift to focus on economic and social issues. Inequality and exclusion are the critical issues of the day and Kenyan politicians are not alone in struggling to offer solutions—as is evident from the political woes of incumbents in many countries. Kenyan elections have a reputation for being heated, controversial and driven by ethnic politics—the classic “ethnic census” election in which communities simply line up behind their communities. This was never really true, but the salience of economic issues in 2022 may finally put that myth to bed.

As noted above, there are still parts of Kenya where ethnic politics are very apparent—and even nationally, it is still possible that a very close and disputed presidential poll will suddenly ignite tensions. Complacency would be a mistake. But this time around, a combination of coalition calculations, the importance of the economy, and the fact that voters are increasingly fed-up of voting for ethnic patrons who don’t deliver, means that ethnicity seems less prominent than it has been in the past. Kenyan voters seem rightly sceptical as to whether “change is coming” in any immediate way—but the tone of these campaigns is a positive development that demonstrates that Kenya’s electorate cannot be taken for granted, and that ethnicity does not trump all other considerations. Maybe change has come?

This election—like the previous two—seems to be missing out on a critical aspect of the constitution: the central and consequential place of parliament. Instead, the country seems to only obsess over the presidency when, in constitutional terms, parliament has more substantive and potent powers than those of the president.

Let me explain why the constitution places equal if not higher primacy in parliament than the executive.

The constitution assigns parliament three substantive powers: law making, budget allocation and oversight. This sounds largely characteristic of what most parliaments in the world do but, for a number of reasons, it is not. First, because of the emphasis our constitution places on the rule of law as a foundational principle of governance; second, because of parliament’s significant power over the national purse; and third, because parliament has a quality control function of making sure the executive is properly implementing the law and prudently utilizing public resources.

Rule of law

Let’s start with the rule of law.

Our constitution emphasizes the centrality of the rule of law in all aspects of governance. Courts have explained that the constitutional principle of the rule of law means that every government or state action and every exercise of state power must find its legitimacy in a law or rule. In fact, courts often invalidate government actions that are not anchored in a law or rule.

Yet the constitution is explicitly clear that only parliament has the power to make any provision that has the force of law except where the constitution or a law—passed by parliament—specifically allows a person or body to do so. With the exception of county assemblies, there are very few instances where the constitution has conferred upon other persons/bodies the power to make laws or rules, and in fact none have been conferred on the president or the national executive. True, parliament does regularly allow the executive to develop rules and regulations to guide the implementation of primary statutes and its administrative actions, but even then, parliament retains a significant oversight role through the Statutory Instruments Act and other oversight tools to check whether the executive gets it right.

Essentially, because everything the president and the executive does must be guided by law, a parliament that appreciates its powers will always keep a leash on the executive, but not necessarily vice versa. Not vice versa because, if parliament needs to do something that is unpopular with the president or the executive, it would simply have to pass the law enabling such action and then require the executive to implement it. Critically, parliament retains the tools to force the executive’s compliance, including the ability to remove cabinet secretaries and in the extreme, to impeach the president or the deputy president. Perhaps, the only time the president has some formal power over parliament is through assent of laws—but even then the constitution overrides that power if a president refuses to timeously assent to a law passed by parliament or where the president expresses reservations with which the parliament fails to agree.

Budget and oversight

Perhaps the most consequential new power the 2010 Constitution gave to parliament—yet the one that the 11th and 12th Parliaments were most clueless about how to utilise—is the budget making power. Most of the power regarding the budget is assigned to the national assembly and includes the power (shared with the Senate) to determine the level of allocation between the national and county governments and the power to decide how much money to allocate to each organ of the national government and the state. Essentially, because money shapes a government’s priorities, parliament has significant sway—utilizing its formal and informal power—over what the president and the executive ought to focus on.

Essentially, because money shapes a government’s priorities, parliament has significant sway over what the president and the executive ought to focus on.

Moreover, after making the laws and allocating the money, parliament is accorded the oversight power which, properly utilized, means following up (mostly with the executive) to ensure proper implementation of the laws it has passed and the money it has allocated. Again, where the executive strays, parliament is accorded the tools to force the executive back into the straight and narrow.

The constitution added another critical element to parliament’s oversight powers—that of scrutinizing and approving most of the consequential appointments of a president, including cabinet and principal secretaries, ambassadors, etc. In fact, a creative and robust parliament would understand that the power to oversight appointments by the executive is elastic and, properly leaned on, could even be used to determine the fate of appointees and public servants of relative low rank within government.

But not a rogue parliament

This all not to say that parliament can ride roughshod over the executive by being either arbitrary, petty, retaliatory or punitive in how it exercises its law-making, money allocation and oversight powers. Far from it. Parliament still has to be guided by the constitution and its actions are open to challenge by the courts and then to objective audit regarding their constitutionality and legality. Still, the immense powers assigned to parliament mean that a suave parliament, operating optimally, likely has the upper hand over all the organs of state (the presidency included) in determining governance priorities.

I recognize that my arguments on parliament’s powers vis à vis those of president may be somewhat acontextual because they fail to acknowledge the complex nature of how the corporate entity that is parliament functions, and the diverse interests involved, and hence the difficulty in achieving parliamentary coherence. Still, those who have closely observed parliamentary design similar to ours in parliaments that are functionally efficient know that the design provides significant powers to individual members as well as to the corporate entity. In such parliaments, when individual members—and especially the head of parliament—understand and fully exercise their power, the potency of the law-making organ is mostly incomparable to that of the executive.

And yes, that nuanced context requires greater acknowledgement and consideration. However, my overall argument remains valid because it is validated by, and anchored in, our constitutional design.

Re-focus on members of parliament

Therefore, even as we become euphoric about presidential choices, we must appreciate where the true and most consequential constitutional power lies: in parliament. In the past, most of those we have chosen as MPs have been quislings or outright charlatans. They either are too clueless to understand the constitutional powers of their office or are so insatiably and gluttonously transactional that all they care about is using their office for self-aggrandisement. Or both. In fact most are both. Because of their nature and their small-mindedness, they fail to see the big picture—the immense power the constitution has conferred on the state entity to which they belong.

In the past, most of those we have chosen as MPs have been quislings or outright charlatans.

So, on August 9th, the decision of who we send to parliament will be just as important—if not more important—than who we vote for to become president.

And still while at it—if you have to advice the runner up, tell them to avoid entertaining emetic thoughts about a possible handshake and instead seek to become speaker of the National Assembly. Much like the position of governor in 2013, it will initially look small, but if he appreciates the magnitude of the power of that office and aligns his ambition with the dictates of the constitution, it might become the most consequential and the most sought after office in the future.

There are some familiar and tired tropes that have long characterised South Asian politics. Some of these are the rise of populist demagogues, authoritarian rule, the breakdown of the rule of law, militarisation, and ethnonationalist and religious conflicts. Much of this has been true of Sri Lanka’s seven-plus decades of post-independence history. The country has seen a 30-year militant conflict fuelled by majoritarian ethnonationalism, two bloodily suppressed Maoist youth uprisings, and increasing religious tensions.

Indeed, the last decade after the conclusion of the war in 2009 has been one of rising ethnic and religious polarisation alongside a growing gap between an affluent urban minority, used to a culture of conspicuous consumption, and a large majority of the population struggling to maintain a decent standard of life.

It was over this highly iniquitous society that the extended Rajapaksa family – led by the charismatic demagogue Mahinda Rajapaksa – built what appeared to be an unshakable political dynasty. But on Saturday, July 9, the Rajapaksa project came to a staggering halt amidst a spectacular people’s uprising, never-before witnessed in Sri Lanka and anywhere in South Asia.

Economic deprivation and cry for political change

The people’s uprising had a singular goal of forcing the incumbent president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa (or Gota), Mahinda’s younger sibling, to resign along with his government.

Gotabaya, elected to power in 2019 with an overwhelming majority, further consolidated by a sweeping electoral win by his party the SLPP (Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna) in 2020, failed to deliver on the vistas of prosperity that his election manifesto promised.

Instead, with faltering income from tourism due to the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks – which those campaigning for Gotabhya weaponised into an anti-Islamic discourse that shored up majoritarian Sinhala Buddhist sentiment and projected Gota as a national saviour – and mismanagement of the economy along with drastic tax cuts benefiting the wealthy and a disastrous overnight attempt to switch to organic farming, Gotabhaya’s political stock had all but expired.

By July 9 there was virtually no fuel in the country, public transport had ground to a standstill and on the evening before, the chief of police declared an illegal ‘police curfew’ in a desperate attempt to discourage protestors.

Despite these many obstacles, from early Saturday morning, people began streaming into the capital Colombo from all parts of the country. Thousands thronged railway stations and forced officials to operate trains. Others walked, cycled, rode on lorries, or scrambled aboard trucks usually used to transport sand. By mid-day hundreds of thousands had gathered in the vicinity of the Presidential Secretariat in the heart of Colombo’s business district – a site which had seen a three-month long ‘occupy’ movement and an encampment named the ‘Gota Go Gama’ (Gota go home village).

Following pitched street battles between the protesters and the police and armed forces, in which protesters were beaten up and multiple rounds of teargas fired, the Presidential Secretariat, the President’s official residence and the Prime Minister’s office and residence were literally and symbolically ‘taken’ over by the people.t appeared that the security forces realising the overwhelming strength of the protesters simply gave up. There were ecstatic scenes as people swarmed the Presidential Palace and office with some even jumping into the swimming pool and images and video footage of the triumph circulating widely on social media – a medium that played a vital role in mobilising and sustaining the protest movement called aragalaya (struggle) in Sinhala.

Throughout the ‘occupy’ movement the Rajapaksa regime and its national security apparatus underestimated the will of the people repeatedly. It all began on March 31 when thousands thronged the President’s personal home in the suburbs of Colombo demanding solutions to power cuts that extended up to 10 hours a day, shortages of fuel and cooking gas, and skyrocketing food prices due to runaway inflation.

Jolted by this sudden uprising the regime responded with overwhelming force – beating up protesters and excessively using teargas followed by mass arrests. But this repression resulted in the establishment of ‘Gota go Gama’ and a nation-wide protest campaign with mini protest sites mushrooming in many towns across the country.

A similar scenario occurred on May 9 when government-backed ‘thugs’ attacked the Gota go Gama site but were unprepared for the instant national backlash with houses of government politicians being torched – ultimately resulting in the resignation of premier Mahinda Rajapaksa.From this point onwards it appeared that the aragalaya was fizzling out, with the appointment of Ranil Wickramasinghe as prime minister – a man with long political experience – who moved swiftly to undermine the protesters by attempting to restore fuel and other supplies.

However, the ‘economic rationality’ of the political elite failed as was evident on July 9. While it was undoubtedly extreme economic deprivation that brought people to the streets, there was and is a clear demand for political change.

A true democratic movement

While some commentators have mischaracterised July 9 as a form of “mob action”, there is a distinct democratic core to the people’s struggle.

Political change in Sri Lanka since 1948 has been through elections where patron-client relationships established by the political elite have often played a key role. Politicians have long wielded a stranglehold on access to key resources. Whether you are a businessman seeking government contracts or a poor farmer looking for subsidized fertiliser, the political class controlled access. The Rajapaksa regime expanded and entrenched this patron-client system as never before and used a toxic glue of racism and religious enmity to bind the Sinhala majority to their political will.

Following the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), the violent militant group that claimed to represent minority Tamil interests, the Rajapaksa’s positioned themselves as saviours of the nation and aligned with a crony-capitalist class and a highly militarised form of governance swiftly moved to build an ethnocratic national security state – cheered on by a triumphalist Sinhala majority high on the military victory and an unsustainable post-war economic boom propelled by heavy government borrowing in international financial markets.

There was a temporary respite when Mahinda was ousted from 2015 to 2019. But with the election of Gotabhaya in 2019, it seemed the Rajapaksas had regained control until the events described above.

The aragalaya can be identified as a democratic movement due to a number of reasons. It broke the vicious cycle of patron-client politics. People marched to Colombo not because of the promise of a monetary handout, some liquor and food – the usual package doled out by political parties to attract supporters to rallies. It was largely a youth-led movement which was able to speak across ethnic, racial and class divides. It also utilised art and culture in creative ways not witnessed in Sri Lankan politics before.

The aragalaya also spoke to issues of economic and social justice, including Sri Lanka’s long history of human rights abuses and impunity, which have long been pushed to the margins. However, the aragalaya movement was not homogenous, unified and nor did it have a distinct core leadership. It is this very formlessness of the movement that allowed so many groups – ranging from student unions, political party affiliated groups, trade unions, civil society activists, artists and youth – to gather under the aragalaya banner.

But this also meant that many unresolved contradictions remained throughout the struggle and the specter of a common enemy unified this diverse group.

Now that the enemy is gone, or very close to going, some of those divisions are re-emerging. Some groups associated with the aragalaya are celebrating Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka, a highly divisive figure accused of war crimes during the 2009 conclusion of the war and other groups are calling for a complete overhaul of the state without considering the constitutional implications of such a radical and democratically unsanctioned restructuring of the state.

The current moment in Sri Lanka is what Antonio Gramsci might call an “interregnum” where the “old is dying and the new is yet to be born”. It is a volatile and fluid situation and the future of Sri Lanka’s politics and society are by no means guaranteed.

But the aragalaya did establish one powerful idea – that despite seemingly overwhelming odds the people’s will can prevail. At the very basic level, this is democracy in action. There is a fundamental distinction to be made between the mob that invaded Capitol Hill in 2021 seeking to preserve the Trump presidency and the nationwide mobilisation that led to the ousting of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. One sought to undermine democracy while the other sought to regain the promise of democratic politics.

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This article was first published by Progressive International.