When an aspiring Women Rep tried to ‘buy’ our chama

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

A few weeks to the 2022 General Election which took place on August 9, an aspiring Women Rep reached out to one of the officials of my local chama. She wanted to attend the next monthly meeting, her agenda being to sell us her vision in the hope that we would vote for her, and also to give us “something small” to boost our savings.

Now, if you’re Kenyan, you understand what the term, “Something small”, means. To call a spade, a spade, it means bribe. No one protested. We didn’t even think it strange that a total stranger was offering us money we hadn’t asked for, money whose source we knew nothing of, thanks to our long-running ‘Kitu Kidogo’ culture.

We told the emissary that her Women Rep was welcome, after all, where was the harm in listening? And by all means, we would also take her money without any reservations, although someone added that since we hadn’t asked for the money, we were not obligated to vote for her. Several of us cheered, already looking forward to the cash boost that would make the chama richer. Who knew, we might even fund an upcoming trip to the Coast with the expected windfall.

Of course, like majority of Kenyan politicians, the aspiring Women Rep hoped that the money would sway us in her favour when we went to the ballot, which I realised is easy to achieve if the voter you’re targeting is uninformed and detached. You go to cast the ballot and realise that apart from the presidential aspirants, those hoping to get the Member of Parliament seat and those contesting for the Governor’s seat, you have never heard of all the others vying for the other seats, and so you end up using guess work to vote, which may partly explain why we end up with bad leaders who do nothing for us in the five years they occupy those expensive seats.

But I was telling you about Kitu Kidogo. The following week, the hopeful Women Rep came to our meeting. Things started to go south for her almost immediately. To begin with, she arrived late, like most politicians do. I know they arrive late because when I was a reporter in the field early in my career, there is no event convened by a politician that ever started on time. Anyway, not only did she arrive late, in that one hour that she ‘graced’ our meeting, her speech kept getting interrupted by phone calls, which she made the mistake of picking, then explaining afterwards that they were from “important people”. Obviously, our time wasn’t important to her.

In less than 30 minutes, it was evident from the women’s faces that she would not get our vote, no matter how much money she parted with. And then the final insult. I don’t know how much we had expected, but we certainly hadn’t expected a mere 27,000 shillings. You should have seen the deflated expressions all around when she handed over the envelope with flourish. The audacity! But since Kenyans are mostly a polite lot, we thanked her, and I believe someone even assured her that she had our vote.

Immediately she walked out, the room exploded in disbelief. The Chairlady wondered what kind of a person gives a donation that doesn’t amount to a round figure. Would it have hurt her to give at least 30,000 shillings? The treasurer concluded that the woman was broke, so the first thing she would do should she get into office was steal from public coffers. Did we want to elect someone like that? She wondered.

There were many more groans about what we had expected verses what we got. The only saving grace, because you might be judging me, was that someone observed that the speech explaining her vision was unconvincing, therefore she wasn’t suitable for the seat. If you’re wondering, the said woman did not get elected, which tells you that we executed an Ol Kalou on her.

Reporting originally appeared via Nation Africa. Read the full source for additional context.