Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August, 2020

Why do people vote for Cruel Leaders?

An Installation at the Berlin Nineties Museum commemorating victims killed  while trying to escape across the Berlin Wall. Despite it's cruelty, the Nazi regime rose to power and remained popular promising solutions to the  numerous problems Germans faced in the 1920s and 1930s. Why do Kenyans, or any other electorate for that matter, vote for cruel politicians or so-called leaders? The common argument is that the voters are ignorant, or were “misled” or had “no option”. But this is not true. People know who and what they are voting for. People intentionally vote for cruel politicians especially when the voters form part of a majority - clan, tribe, race, nation, class or other majority. It is not that they do not know the politicians are cruel. They simply assume that the crue