The Electoral Colleges; A Blessing in Disguise or A Total Denial of Rights

U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) defined democracy as a government of the people, by the people, for the people. This has been the case in University politics in Kenya, well up until 16th December 2016 when the University (Amendment) Act was enacted by parliament and signed into law by the President of the Republic of Kenya. Made by then Education Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’I, the amendment was a way to rein in the multiple and chaotic terms of office in the Students Organisation of Nairobi University (SONU) held by Paul Ongili, commonly known as Babu Owino. It requires student councils to be voted in not by all the students, but by electoral college representatives elected by the students. Unlike the constitution that was the fruit of struggles for freedom, the Kenyan university students are being forced by law to deny themselves their own constitutional rights.

The electoral college works like this; the students’ association constitutes itself into electoral colleges based on either academic departments, schools or faculties, as may be appropriate. The students of each electoral college shall then elect three representatives – from amongst persons who are not candidates and of whom not more than two-thirds shall be of the same gender. The representatives of each electoral college shall elect the members of the student council within thirty days of the election. Simple, unlike the former way of direct popular vote. Electoral colleges were created by the founding fathers of the United States as a bargain between the northern, more populated states, and the southern slave-holding states. During the constitutional conventions in 1787, the delegates realised that if the president was to be elected by popular vote, meaning including votes from slaves, it would present a political problem for whites, because the slaves would choose their own candidate, which the white men in power could not allow. This simple history of electoral colleges shows how unfair the system is in regard to electoral colleges as a voting system. They are, by design, intended to limit the voice of actual people. Electoral colleges exploit the numbers of people without allowing the same people to have an equal say in how they are governed.

University students have since had a hard time accepting the amendment, well at least those who care. Apparently most University students do not really care about school leadership all throughout their campus life, that is a story for another day. Since the amendment, students have bemoaned the new system. On January 23 2017, student representatives from all over the country presented a petition at Milimani High Court, which sought to suspend the Act altogether, citing its assent as unconstitutional and contrary to the Constitution of Kenya.

We sought the opinion of a few students and alumni. Vincent Marvin was elected Chairperson Rongo University via the electoral college in 2018. He just completed his term and had the following to say about the system. The electoral college system is advantageous since the cases of post election violence greatly reduced in universities. He went ahead to say that tribalism is a major threat during campus and even national politic season, but the delegate system has since reduced this. However, Vincent agrees that the electoral colleges hinder democracy as people wish to elect their leaders directly. Therefore the electoral colleges may favour the incompetent leaders who might ask influential students to convince delegates to vote them in which is opposed to them convincing the entire population. It encourages corruption as after delegates use money to campaign for themselves, hence they tend to compensate by requesting money from the executive members who also want their votes. Either way, the main thing must remain we all want peaceful elections, equality and efficient and cheap voting method which is the delegates system. Ideally, Vincent totally supports the electoral colleges.

Most of our pundits however, disapproved the electoral colleges. Cornelius Omuse, an alumni and former Chairman of Rongo University in Migori County argues that the delegate system of election is one of the worst trends to ever happen bearing in mind that all the top most office bearers from the chairperson are elected with a few students seated in a boardroom. This denies the majority of the students to make their own choices and the student leaders are less accountable especially to the students body because they were not elected by them. It gives the corrupt university managements an opportunity to easily buy the few delegates to vote in student leaders of their choice. Mr. Omuse was elected through one man one vote system and it really kept his team accountable and served as a ground for even better future leadership. It is Omuse’s hope that the legislators will have a look at the bill one more time.

Political commentator Brian Ouko Jr. sympathizes with Africans as “we never stop bothering ourselves but still never really knowing what we want. We dichotomize everything, every aspect and every opinion there in; us vs them, sad vs happy, etc.” Perhaps why do we see something as good today but tomorrow the same thing is the worst? Ouko Jr. further adds that from inception, the delegates system was seen as a solution to students’ unrest during elections at the universities albeit that’s  how we were conditioned to believe (remember Duale and his cohorts are the only people who well knew why they brought the bill). Ouko is convinced that the electoral college system of voting is a scam, a crap proven by the ensuing melee at the universities which tell more to what I write. From the government of Moi to date, the government has always wished to neutralise the ‘Comrades Power’ and maybe after a well thought and worked out research the finding was the delegates system. As revolutionists did say, ‘nothing for us without us.’ Brian’s thoughts are that university students must thus elect student leaders through universal suffrage.

Therefore, the University (Amendment) Act (2016) is a burden to campus students who believe in free and fair elections. Unless there is a way to ensure fairness and no corruption, then the Electoral Colleges voting system will continue to promote administration puppetry and corruption in our Universities.