On the rare occassion that my politicians make me feel proud to be Kenyan...

I figure if I'm going to whine about our politicians being useless, I definitely ought to give credit where it's due, right? This post is a follow up of this one in which I urged all my US citizen friends to go out and vote. I also called Kenyan members of parliament pigs -- this is the part that I would like to follow up today.

On February 11, 2013, Kenya held its first presidential debate. Now, I'll admit that I was not planning on watching this for a number of reasons:

a) I have felt an increasing amount of apathy since the fateful day I called the Kenyan Embassy in DC to inquire about diaspora voter registration and was directed to a Facebook page "for more information."

b) The whole presidential debate thing felt like a sham. Politically, we have a tendency to ape the United States, whether or not it is applicable in our country. This felt like it would result in a poorly-executed, half-thought-through event.

c) Six candidates were set to be on the podium! And then by the morning of, Kenyan time, two candidates who'd taken to court over being excluded were added to the line-up. Eight politicians! Yeah, I figured I had better things to do.

Thankfully, I was guilt-tripped into watching it. More like, I felt ashamed to allow such a momentous political circus pass me by.

Now, I would like to go on and on about what went on, what points were handled, and which were ignored, maybe even hand out a score card to the politicians. But I would also like to keep this short. (You can watch a video of the debates here, here's Gado's impression of the debates, and this is what The Standard had to say.)

Here is why I was happy with the production.

1. Linus Kaikai. The man was a star! He was obviously paying attention during the US presidential debates. Many of the complaints about the moderators of the US presidential debates revolved around them either not doing their job, or doing it too well in favor of one candidate. Not this man! He was strict with the timekeeping -- when time was up, time was up! He asked the right questions, kept the candidates on track, followed up with more questions when they tried to wiggle themselves out of it. He knew he had a job to do and he had come to do it.

2. The candidates were respectful to each other. With 8 politicians on stage, I was convinced that no one would be able to get two words in. No such thing! People spoke in turn and candidates were very respectful of each other. Even though she was the only female candidate, Martha Karua received the respect due to her. I am so proud of my politicians!

3. People talked issues! One of my biggest grievances about Kenyan politics is its emphasis on regional politics and party affiliations. There was some of that, but they did a better job than usual of focusing on ideology. Perhaps the pressure of national viewership and the need to impress donors (I'm sure there was a little bit of that) forced the candidates to do their homework. Everyone brought their A-Game. Even Dida, who progressively made himself the clown of the act had valid points to bring to the table.

I came out of that session feeling extremely proud of Kenya. I know I definitely was not the only one!

I thought I was the only one who felt peculiarly excited & proud of this country after the debate. I'm glad I have company. #KEDebate13
— Mugambi Nthiga (@ItsMugambi) February 11, 2013

So, do you guys think that this feeling will last us a month, and maybe beyond the elections?