YOUR HEALTH AND THE BALLOT

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

On August 8^th 2017, Kenyans went to the ballot to elect political leaders who will run the nation’s affairs for the next five years. This happened in a hotly contested election, where 14,523 candidates were competing for 1,882 positions.

Over the years, with the increasing population, number of elected positions, technology and innovation, we have seen a metamorphosis of campaign strategies applied across board that are quite interesting. A newly elected 24-year old member of parliament for Igembe South constituency, John Paul Mwirigi, rode around the whole constituency on a bicycle with no budget and managed to convince his people to vote for him. Boniface Mwangi and his Ukweli Party brought a whole new meaning to crowd-funding on social media to support their campaigns.

However, despite these innovative methods, what has not changed over the decades is the message communicated by the candidates. This should be the most important building block of any campaign but it is often lost amidst the glamour of the campaign strategy. The electorate will take to social media to discuss the theme colours, the crowd size, the campaign caravan, the billboards, theme songs and all but majority do not even remember what the candidate aims to deliver.

The messaging is pretty clear at the presidential candidate level and should be too for governors but for the legislative positions, which is the national assembly, the senate and county assembly members, the electorate is mostly clueless on their role and hence keep lapping up whatever untrue promises they are given without question.

Every citizen wants to be assured of the basic pillars of any nation being provided for: education, health, infrastructure, security, economic growth and social justice. Therefore, every aspirant has crafted their so-called manifestos around these, even when the position they are vying for has no direct influence on the above. This is because this is what the electorate wants to hear.

Back in my home village, the road to my local market center has been seasonal since I was born. Since the 1980’s, in the single party era, every member of parliament campaigned on the promise of having the road elevated to bitumen standard. It is a key road that networks Keroka town, Kisii town and Nyamira town, opening up these towns as markets for the farmer’s produce and allowing access to health and administrative infrastructure. Despite the market center being less than 20km from either town, it remains untarmacked to date. Its construction was launched in 2011, Nyamira county incorporated it into its strategic plan for 2013-2017 with an intent to complete it by 2015 but to date, the work is less than 50% complete with tarmac on less than 40% of it. As recently as this year, the president, on his campaign circuit took a moment to relaunch it yet again!

Most campaigns in rural Kenya target women as the most reliable voters. In our villages, the women are the backbone of the community. ActionAid looked at the work women do and found that in Kenya, for women, it is 1.4 times more than men. Hence, as our women are home taking care of babies, children and the sick, minding the farms, fetching water and looking for firewood; work which is largely unpaid, the men will spend most of their time either in paid activities (employment) or in non-productive activities (socializing, technology-based activities). Hence for this woman, any campaign promise to ease her work is welcome and is more likely to influence her opinion on who to vote for.

Herein comes the importance of health services. In general, women will need healthcare services more than men. They get pregnant and spend seven months visiting the antenatal clinic, they will deliver in hospital and thereafter the visits continue for months but now with focus on the baby. Children under five years are most prone to common ailments are more likely to spend a lot of time in the health facilities. This becomes the responsibility of the mother in most homes. For this reason, lack of access to healthcare is most acutely felt by women.

The most absurd trend therefore has been when women throw these concerns out of the window at election time. Over the years, our campaigns have become extremely materialistic with disregard to the law. The tough economic times have reduced able bodied men and women to election beggars who have thrown out their dignity and replaced it with greed seeking instant gratification. These men and women who have a right to demand of their politicians to ensure services are provided and infrastructure built, have sold their birthright for a few hundred shillings.

As much as the whole world will unite to fight for women and children’s health rights, our women must be at the forefront in this fight, or else those who do so will be fighting a losing battle. For the pregnant woman who opens her door at midnight to receive a pair of flip-flops, a leso and a 200-shilling note in exchange for her vote, yet in a few weeks she will deliver on the floor of the health center with no midwife in attendance, you are what is wrong with Kenya. For that chief who will be used to intimidate your people to vote for a certain candidate in exchange for a few thousand shillings, yet you continue to issue death notifications for babies who died at home of diarrhea, you are no different from Hitler.

Every five years, Kenyans get a new lease to choose new politicians to manage their health resources. It is increasingly clear that we do not seem to grasp this concept. In a country where 90% of the population depends on the public health facilities, we must be an absurd people not to appreciate just how critical it is to demand the health agenda be top on our list. And not just the lip service and wastage of public health resources that we have witnessed in the past few years but real health systems that work. Women, we must rise up, we are the most affected!