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Thursday 7 February 2013

OF POLITICIANS, POLLS AND THE PARADOX OF POLITICS

So, fellow Kenyan, you think your problems will be solved by a politician? Yet it hasn't occurred to you that the same politician could be the source and sustainer of the very same problems. It's your right to vote. But it's not right to be reduced to a voting machine.

The spirited efforts by some sections of the local media to prominently highlight issues and drive a people's agenda, ahead of the March General Election, still appear to be subordinate to the polarising posturing by politicians.

And therein lies the paradox of politics. Much as Kenyan politicians can test the very outer limits of one's patience, if not sanity, they still represent a formidable platform to institute positive change.

But that is not to say politicians should be accorded acres of space in the papers and endless broadcast airtime, to propagate 'pretentious' commitments to advancing the welfare of Kenyans.

Simply put for the umpteenth time, all the public utterances made by politicians need to be probed. That is what a respectable media ought to adopt as a standard operating procedure.

I once, as a TV reporter, foolishly thought the burden of proof was on a politician, who claimed in my news story that some people own land the size of Rwanda and Burundi.

My editor asked me a simple question: What evidence do you have?

Evidence. Evidence. Not one politician saying this and another saying that.








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