Here come the elections, and no-one wants to engage in a presidential debate; surprised?

Kenya's Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga during the debate in which President Uhuru Kenyatta did not show up on July 24, 2017. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NMG 

In Summary

• The contemporary voter needs constant media exposure to their candidate, but also a demonstration of intellectual prowess. And where better to defeat your opponents than in a televised debate?

By ELSIE EYAKUZE
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This is an August year: Two of our EAC countries will be holding elections. On the balance, those who are optimistic about democracy in Africa are...
thin on the ground right now, and the notion has taken a beating around the world recently.

I am not sure why: There remains a lot to be said about the practice of voting for the health of citizenship; it is one of the few times where we regular folks can feel as though we have any influence on the greater political arena. However slight that influence may be (or even imaginary sometimes) it is not something to be taken lightly.

Rwanda and Kenya are going to the ballot this week and the next one respectively, and the journalistic profession has its demands, such as the impetus to highlight the brewing violence and democratic travesties that come hand in hand with so many of our elections. Here is to hoping that these will prove to be thoroughly unexciting times, that things will go boringly smoothly.

It has been instructive to read the coverage of these two events by commentators from the countries in question. Rwanda, as reported by the Rwandese, is going to be just fine. Kenya, as reported by the Kenyans, is going to Kenya its way through as it always does.

In the build-up to voting, something has struck me about our commonality across the region that is worth a bit of a chuckle.

Presidential debates

Presidential candidate debates? Apparently, we just can’t. Try as we may, in Tanzania we have never been able to pull one off and it looks like in this electoral year, neither can our neighbours. The disappointment I may have felt about my own incumbents in the past few elections not showing up for a good debate has been alleviated by witnessing the tribulations of our neighbours.

Isn’t this odd, especially in light of the notion that most African cultures are oral cultures? We like to show up in droves for rallies, and will sit through almost any kind of weather to listen to a public address, no matter how long.

We are Africans, producers of orators of such great lung-power that some of them are legends in the United Nations, holding records for exhausting translators as they lectured for hours and hours.

We’re so hard-core that even when our old men in power re-read speeches that they have given before, we politely let them do so without interruption because we hold the gift of the gab in such high regard.

Why, then, no debates? The manifestos are secondary to the individual and to the party anyways, we know most of us have made up our minds long before the tales of milk and honey start pouring out of politicians’ mouths.

We all have a state broadcaster that is run by executives who have been hired on the basis of their ability to appease the fragile ego of the state.

These consummate negotiators can generally be trusted to rig a debate so that the incumbent will be protected from the harshness of true competition.

I can understand the need not to “engage” the opposition in argument as this flies in the face of so-called respect for authority, old-school style.

Political gladiator games

And if we are honest, it is possible that some of our leaders have been unchallenged for so long that they wouldn’t know what to do if confronted with a candid and direct question.

But times have changed, this is no longer the era of fly whisks and leopard skins and multiple wives.

The contemporary voter needs constant media exposure to their candidate, but also a demonstration of intellectual prowess. And where better to defeat your opponents than in a televised debate? It’s not like everyone can be Vladimir Putin, riding around shirtless and conquering opponents on the judo mat. For mere mortals, the debate floor will have to do.

So I commiserate with our neighbours who have also been robbed of the opportunity to watch a presidential debate, the closest we get to political gladiator games. Maybe next time. Happy voting.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: elsieeyakuze@gmail.com