Post-election fiasco

Kenya’s 2007 general election will go down into the annals of history as the most competitive as well as the most controversial ever. Never in the past has an election been so close to call. Kenyans, young and old, came out in large numbers to express their wish with optimism that their long-awaited aspirations would soon become a reality. But all that is now over-shadowed by the chaos that erupted soon after the announcement of the Presidential results by Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), giving President Mwai Kibaki a second five-year term in office.

From Mombasa in Coast Province to Malava in Western, Kenya is on fire. Thousands of Kenyans are now refugees in their own country after they were flushed out of their own land, apparently, for having voted for the “wrong side” (the incumbent). In the end, Kenyans have reaped the fruits of what they sowed - ethnicity whose end results is death and more deaths.

Ethnic Rivalry

The on-going well-calculated massacres mostly rocked Nairobi, Nyanza and Rift Valley regions, prompting the question why? The main protagonists have been the Kikuyu, Luo and Kalenjins and in some instances Kisiis. Why three region and three communities?

Raila Odinga’s ODM draws its fanatical support from Luo Nyanza and North Rift, the heartland of the latest skirmishes that started as soon as Kibaki was declared the winner and minutes later went on to be sworn-in for his second and final term. Kibaki’s PNU has Central Province and Upper Eastern as its stronghold.

There has been a long-time perception that Kikuyus “took away” land formally owned by the Kalenjins in Rift Valley although the fact of the matter is that the occupants bought the land and are indeed legitimate title deed holders. Rift Valley is severally referred to as the “Kikuyu” Diaspora as many of them being natural farmers and businesspersons gradually acquired chunks of land in the region through state-owned Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC). But the ethnic rivalry first came into the limelight during the Moi regime when the retired President used ethnicity to consolidate power. Through his lieutenants, Moi staged the infamous 1992/97 ethnic cleansing that displaced thousands of Kikuyus – who by then were diehard opposition supporters - and in the end denied them a chance to vote, tilting the ballot in his favor. Apart from Kikuyus, Kisiis, likewise an agricultural community, is the only other community to have been tempted by the fertile soil of Rift Valley. They too, have not escaped the blunt of ethnic animosity that have raged across the vast region. They have been targets of rug-tug militiamen operating in Kuresoi and Molo, Buret and Bomet constituencies.

For the Luos, their rivalry with Kikuyus is historical. It started soon after independence following the fallout between President Kenyatta and his VP Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Raila’s father. The acrimonious parting took place in Kisumu when Kenyatta went to open the Kisumu Provincial Hospital popularly known as “Russia” as Jaramogi used his USSR connection to raise funds for its construction. The Luos heckled the then bigger-than-life Kenyatta who responded by ordering the army and the dreaded General Service Unit (GSU) to action, prompting the death of many Luos. A perception has grown that though Jaramogi assisted Kenyatta to become Kenya’s first President, the former rewarded him by sidelining him and his community. Jaramogi had been implored by British colonialist to form a Government but back-off “until Kenyatta was released from prison”. In essence he stepped aside for Kenyatta.

Moi followed Kenyatta’s steps by putting him under home arrest after the infamous 1982 attempted coup in which Raila was detained as the ring leader. Raila and Moi were later to join hands after the 1997 election which culminated by the latter dissolving his National Development Party (NDP) to take a ministerial position in Moi’s government on promise he would be his obvious successor but eventually, Moi opted for Uhuru Kenyatta, a political nonentity by then. Raila, a shrewd politician as he is, teamed up with Kibaki (a Kikuyu) on agreement that he would be a one-term President and in-between he would appoint him Prime Minister. Kibaki never lived to those promises. Raila turned into a fierce critic of Kibaki, in spite of being a Cabinet minister, seriously putting the relations between the two communities – Luos and Kikuyus – at all time low.

Stand-off

What Kenyans treasure most is “peace and economic stability”. Putting a meal on table, seeing their children going to school and a decent roof top is dear to any Kenyan. However, the current political impasse is almost robbing them that treasure and is indeed threatening to tear apart the nation.

Kibaki is ECK winner of the 2007 election while Raila is “people’s choice”. But what is the way forward for Kenya?

First, Kibaki has taken the oath of office and is thus, legally, the President of the Republic of Kenya and all others are constitutionally bound to accept that verdict unless it is overturned by a court of law. Raila must therefore negotiate with Kibaki to break the stalemate; otherwise the country will continue bleeding. By law, Kibaki is his senior.

I am of the opinion that a workable solution still stands to save Kenya from the bad image it has ‘purchased’ in recent weeks. The two leaders must accept that Kenya is bigger than their political ambitions.

A coalition government in with Raila as VP could be an option. However, the ODM de facto leader has rejected this offer. In the event of such an arrangement, Kalonzo’s ODM-K would automatically assume the position of the leader of the official opposition in parliament.

Another option would be to convene parliament with one agenda in mind, constitutional amendment. Such an amendment should border along the Executive. May be, MPs should toy with the idea of having an executive President (with limited powers) and two Deputy President (not Vice-President) with clearly defined duties. Also, legislators should introduce the post of a non-executive Prime Minister with two Deputies, again, with clearly defined duties. A clarification should be made as to whether the PM and his Deputies should be answerable to the President or Parliament. The new law should, likewise, stipulate who between MPs and the President should be the appointing as well as the firing authority. Other issues that Raila would take to the negotiation table are the control of parliamentary calendar, which legislators have unsuccessfully sought to wrestle from the President and a permanent date for the General Election.

A third option would only be viable if the two leaders fail to break the stalemate. This brings in the possibility of a coalition between Kibaki and ODM-K’s Kalonzo Musyoka with the latter as the VP. By entering into such an arrangement, the two would be bracing for a battle of a lifetime on the floor of parliament where Raila’s ODM commands a slim majority. It is imperative to note that ODM prides itself some of the most gifted and educated politicians in the likes of Lawyer James Orengo (Ugenya MP), Prof. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o (Kisumu Rural), Otieno Kajwang’ (Mbita) and William Ruto (Eldoret North). The Government would find it quite tricky in passing key bills in parliament.

Another option would for Kibaki to step down and call a fresh election. But legal technicalities still stand on the way as to whether it is possible to call a Presidential poll without necessarily dissolving parliament, saving the MPs-elect the burden of going it all over again to seek fresh mandate. Constitutionally, the two should be conducted together. Kibaki’s men would in no way agree to follow this route as a re-run would record a low voter turn-out.

It is imperative to note that time is running out for Raila Presidency and the game plan for 2012 politics could be totally different from 2007. Raila might not be the favorite candidate and Central Kenya could push for a non-Kikuyu for Presidency to brush aside the notion that they cannot support anyone apart from one of their own as a strategy for 2017. I foresee a Kalonzo-Uhuru Presidency quite feasible not very far in the future. The two have a soft spot for each other and attract support from across the country and are untainted by corruption.

Ends…

How Moi Turned Many Against His Own Rule

By WAMBUA SAMMY

Fire smoulders in a house torched during ethnic clashes in Laikipia district of Rift Valley Province

When he was sworn in as Kenya's second president in 1978, Daniel arap Moi was an immensely popular leader. His polite mien endeared him to many, especially when he announced that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, a legend to many Kenyans.

Of course there was the so-called "Kiambu Mafia" that had gone to great lengths to block a Moi presidency. And to have a semblance of legality, they formed the so-called Change-the-Constitution Group in 1976, with the recently converted Kanu loyalists Kihika Kimani and Njenga Karume as its pointmen.

Karume was in the anti-Moi group in his capacity as chairman of the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association (Gema), an ethnic business venture whose unwritten objective was to retain the presidency in Central Province.

The group's strategy was to amend the constitution and repeal the clause that provides for the vice president to act as the president for 90 days, to deny Moi a headstart.

Eventually, however, the then Attorney General Charles Njonjo scuttled the group's plot by amending the constitution to criminalise acts of imagining and encompassing the death of the president.

Njonjo had Kenyatta's support, which is why the president assented to the amendment into law. A former Njonjo ally recalls an incident last year in which Karume reminded Njonjo of a day in 1977 when Njonjo tried to convince him to leave the anti-Moi group alone because Moi's presidency would never happen.

After taking power, Moi realised that the "Kiambu Mafia" had powerful connections in the civil service and the business sector and it wasn't easy to dismantle them. But the opportunity for the purge came in the form of an abortive coup in 1982.

Many saw logic and pragmatism in Moi's purge, arguing that besides the civil service, Kenyatta had filled most of the state firms with his own people. These included Mathira MP Matu Wamae, who headed the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation; John Michuki, now Kangema MP (Kenya Commercial Bank); Stanley Githunguri, the National Bank of Kenya; Chris Kirubi, the defunct Kenya National Transport Company; Matere Keriri (MP Kerugoya-Kutus), the Development Finance Company of Kenya; Maina Gakuo, the Kenya Railways Corporation; and Julius Gecau, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.

Most of the permanent secretaries also hailed from Central Province as did provincial commissioners Eliud Mahihu (Coast), Isaiah Mathenge (Rift Valley) and Charles Koinange (Eastern).

But Moi's "ethnic re-engineering" did not endear him to many apart from the beneficiaries who landed plum jobs and contracts in the myriad state corporations that he created. Indeed, accusations of nepotism have sometimes forced the president to comment publicly on the issue.

In May 2000, he promised the nation that the government would publish a list of its senior officers and their backgrounds to prove that there was ethnic balance in the civil service.

This did not happen but it would appear that the president was reacting to an unsuccessful attempt to table such a list by Africa Confidential that detailed the ethnic backgrounds of senior public figures.

"The difference between Moi and Kenyatta is that Kenyatta's appointees were qualified for the jobs," says a former permanent secretary, voicing a sentiment that may have been true in the early 1980s but not today.

It is also instructive that most of the Kenyatta-era parastatals posted profits; after 1978 they became bottomless pits in which the government kept sinking public funds. Government-guaranteed debts today threaten to ruin the National Bank of Kenya and the Kenya Commercial Bank.

Former Kanu secretary general Joseph Kamotho agrees that Moi's unpopularity in certain quarters has increased with time. "Familiarity breeds contempt," says Kamotho hinting that the president's 24 years in office cannot endear him to many.

But perhaps what estranged him further, says Kamotho, is what was seen as a deliberate destruction of the Kikuyu economic base in the 1980s. It started with the collapse of the Rural Urban Credit Finance Ltd, amid claims of dirty politics against its owner, the late Andrew Ngumba, a one-time Nairobi mayor.

Its failure was followed by the collapse of other financial institutions associated with Central Province luminaries such as Jimnah Mbaru's Jimba Credit Corporation, Nationwide Finance, Continental Bank, Estate Finance, Estate Building Society and Business Finance Company. There was also the case of the leveraged takeover of S.K. Macharia's Madhupaper by individuals close to the ruling elite.

The collapse of these institutions obviously reflected management inadequacies. However, unlike institutions such as the Kenya Co-operative Creameries and the National Bank of Kenya, which have been kept alive by massive injection of public funds, Rural Urban and others were left to die.

Home Affairs Minister William Ruto says there was nothing peculiar with the collapse of the banks. "Banks have continued to collapse... the reason why the president appeared to be unpopular in Central Province had to do with the introduction of multiparty democracy in Kenya by Kikuyu politicians."

But the president's popularity hit rock bottom during the 1988 general elections that were blatantly rigged to weed out figures perceived to be disloyal to the president. This episode marked a political culture in which sycophants such as the late Kariuki Chotara turned pseudo-governors. The fiery Kanu hawk of Nakuru had the temerity to order Kanu youthwingers to supervise the operations of traffic police officers along the highways.

To alienate the president even further was the infamous Kanu National Disciplinary Committee. Many a politician accused of all manner of political crimes by their rivals would weep before the "Kangaroo court" that rivalled the Spanish Inquisition in its travesty of justice.

The result was that by the late 1980s there was a popular clamour for multiparty democracy, which the government was eventually forced to accept in 1991. But not before it had further "unpopularised" itself by detaining the multiparty crusaders Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia.

This wave of dissent led to the rejection of Moi in Central, Nairobi and Nyanza provinces in the 1992 General Election, in which Matiba garnered 1.4 million votes against the president's 1.9 million, while Mwai Kibaki managed 1.05 million and Oginga Odinga 900,000. Had the opposition combined forces then, its total 3.2 million votes would have ended Kanu's rule.

Nyanza, Central and Nairobi provinces continued to reject the president, with election result figures for the 1997 polls changing only slightly.

The president managed to increase his votes to 2.4 million as did Kibaki, who got 1.7 million in the absence of a Matiba candidature, an increase of about 600,000 votes for each of them.

A blemish that Moi will find difficult to erase from his legacy as he retires is the tribal clashes that rocked the country during the 1992 and 1997 elections. That there are still Kenyans who are refugees in their own country and the government has not provided them with security so that they can resettle in their former homes makes him a hard sale.

This has been compounded by cases where the clash victims' land has been shared or sold out to other people. Even more worrying is the government's refusal to release the findings of the Akiwumi Commission of Inquiry into the clashes five years later.

10th Parliament

Pressure is mounting on President Kibaki to recall Parliament in order to embark on a process that will give birth to some very crucial constitutional reforms that would, perhaps, unlock the current political impasse over the disputed Presidential election results. The push to have such reforms was recently affirmed by Speaker of the National Assembly Kenneth Marende, who is said to have told an informal closed-door session between Kenyan MPs and Koffi Annan that “the National Assembly is willing and ready to play its rightful role in finding a sustainable and lasting peace for our country”.

Parliament will be seeking to ratify – through constitutional amendments - the steps of a political agreement between the ruling Party of National Unity (PNU)/Government side and ODM, the Official Opposition in Parliament. Lawmakers will be expected to unanimously support whatever political settlements the negotiators will agree under the Annan-led initiative by quickly adopting and passing the necessary bills.

But serious handles stand in the way of the 10^th Parliament since Kenya gained independence from Britain almost half a century ago. Ethnic hatred and tension among legislators is at an all time high. Suspicion and mistrust reigns supreme among honorable members of the National Assembly.

According to a hint, given by none other but Annan, we may all have to settle for a “Grand Coalition” made up of Government and the Opposition. Two years down the line, says Annan, Kenyans should be able to heal and go for a fresh poll without tearing themselves apart. To accommodate such, as per Annan’s view, more (powerful) positions would be created to bring on board ODM’s top brass, Raila included. Such positions would consist of a Prime minister, his two or three Deputies and one more Vice-President. There are indications that the VP position could be phased out and replaced with a Deputy President with clearly defined job description. The Executive would thus constitute President and his two Deputies, Prime Minister and his three Deputies and the Cabinet.

To say the least, such radical proposals would require constitutional amendments. As per the current standing orders, any constitutional amendment has to attract the support of no less than two thirds of MP which translates into 144 members. As we stand today, neither PNU/Government nor ODM commands such a majority. What we have is a very slim majority that could be turned around any day courtesy of personal and parochial interests. The Government side (PNU and its affiliate parties) and ODM are locked in a game of numbers. Both parties have 102 members while six seats are still vacant. They are Kamukunji and Embakasi in Nairobi, Wajir West in North Eastern, Kilgoris and Ainamoi in Rift Valley. ODM lost two of its members while Emuhaya seat fell vacant following the election of Marende as the Speaker of the National Assembly. The Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) ordered a repeat of parliamentary elections in the other three constituencies following clear evidence of electoral malpractices.

Unless hardliners on both sides give away concessions, Kenya could be headed for another round of a serious political stalemate, bigger and with far-reaching effects than what was experienced in January.

Time will be of great significance. Under the standing orders (Rule Book of Parliament), there are four sittings each week. Government business is conducted in Parliament on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons 2.30 pm to 6.30 pm. On Wednesday mornings, Parliament sits between 9.00 am and 12.30 pm for what is called Private Members Business to address issues brought by back benchers. Kenya Parliament, therefore, works very short weeks and ultimately years. So commitment to the (reform) cause must be highly exhibited by all MPs.

At the end of the day Parliament must decide, through necessary legislations, whether the country should adopt a parliamentary system of government, in which a Prime Minister is appointed from the majority party in Parliament and the President remains more or less ceremonial and who between the PM and the President should weird more powers. This is where the most probable stalemate will emanate from.

Another option would be to go for a hybrid system in which executive authority is shared between the President and Prime Minister in the model of the French system. PNU/Government, however, want the Tanzanian model where President is the head of state and government and has powers to appoint his PM.

The powers of Parliament should be defined as to which appointments to be vetted by the August House. With ODM still silently pushing for Kibaki exit, a key proposal would be for Parliament to have unlimited powers to control its own procedures and calendar through Standing Orders. This would enable ODM to push for a vote of no confidence motion without subjecting MPs to another poll before the lapse of the five-year term. PNU/Government is very keen on this and will vehemently object to such a proposal.

ODM want a reformed judiciary due to numerous petitions at the High Court over the just-concluded polls. Raila has on several occasions publicly expressed his lack of faith in the courts as an option to justice. Raila is of the opinion that Parliament should be given powers to vet the names of nominees to the judiciary before they are gazetted.

ODM leaders are of the opinion that the ultimate decision to commit themselves to resolutions of the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee headed by Annan would be made by their supporters countrywide. How they intend to do so is a matter yet to spill to the public domain. It would be a kind of a (party) referendum. Hardliners within ODM are of the opinion that all past injustices must be addressed including the last election. In other words, the outcome of the December poll must be addressed to the satisfaction of all Kenyans countrywide.

MEANWHILE, the PNU/Government side is to be opposed to a Grand Coalition with ODM. According to PNU insiders, bringing in Pentagon members and other top ODM luminaries in Government would make it hard to pursue architect of post-election violence that rocked the country a month ago. Some like Ruto, Kosgey (MP Tindrett), Ntimama (MP Narok North), and Kones (Buret) are among top on the list of politicians who the Government believes perpetrated violence and even bankrolled militia whose orgy of bloodshed cost the lives of more than 1000 Kenyans.

As a result, PNU want the mandate to decide who joins the Cabinet to remain the preserve of the President (Kibaki). This is seen by many observers as a way to create a way for Kibaki to reject overtures to appoint some top ODM leaders who the Government is keen on prosecuting owing in respect to their role in post-election violence.

These, coupled by a string of legal technicalities likely to arose, are some of the issues that Parliament would have to surmount to break the current political deadlock.

Ends…