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IS THIS THE MOST INCONSEQUENTIAL ELECTION IN KENYA'S HISTORY?

 Kenyans will be heading to the polls yet again on the 9th of August, 2022. There will be over 50 presidential candidates to choose from, but let's be honest, the real contest is between Raila Odinga and William Samoei Arap Ruto. The other are just page boys and flower girls. Ruto enjoys a slender lead in opinion polls with little over 100 days to the elections. No matter what happens between now and August ninth (barring death to either of the two front-runners- God forbid) we're set to have one of these folks running the country.

Little is however expected to change. At least not positively. Ruto promises a "bottom up" approach while Raila has been all about "upward social mobility". They roughly mean the same thing. What they aren't telling us is "what exactly they're going to do". It is one thing to throw around technical jargon and slogans and another thing altogether to spell out concise policy directions backed up with pragmatic approaches and action points. Take Ruto's bottom up approach for example; it is an approach to what exactly? Ruto has constantly bombarded the masses with his, "I'll inject 50 billion shillings in small businesses" nonsense but what form will this injection take? Is it a grant, a loan or just incentives? All these already exist in the current system, so what's new?

Raila Odinga's ten point plan looks attractive on paper but how piratical is it? I bet not at all. Raila has been saying that he knows all the loopholes through which public funds are pilfered and that he'll seal those loopholes. In other words, he saying that he'll  use better what we already have rather than focus on broadening the tax bracket or increasing the tax burden. That is a silly joke. Even currently, our budjet is debt-funded and the current rate of borrowing is unsustainable. Raila will have to cut on borrowing while expanding government expenditure all at the same time and that's just not going to happen. Which brings me to the main point of this article.

No matter which side win, we're doomed to at least five years of hardship. Kenyans should brace themselves for even higher inflation, skyrocketing food prices and high cost of living. We have for too long relied on rain-fed agriculture and it has caught up with us. Mega infrastructure development has masked up economic stagnation and now Kenyan's are waking up to the reality that those decent GDP figures do not translate to better living standards. We are one of the most taxed people on earth  (and in history) and also the most debt burdened, and yet the two front-runners in our elections are clueless on how to turn our fortunes around. Not just clueless, they're indifferent to our plight. Do not buy the lie that Ruto will turn this around. If anything he's part of the administration that has put this heavy yoke on our necks.

 It doesn't matter who wins. The 2022 election will be the most inconsequential in our history. No wonder the Central Kenya mafia aren't fronting a strong candidate but are instead supporting either of the Rs.

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