Opinion
International Center for Policy and Conflict (ICPC) note that Nandi Senator Kiprotich Arap cherargei constitutional amendment proposals are nothing but continuity of the collapsed horrible BBI process in another form. The constitutionally incoherent and unintelligent proposals are in furtherance of the political intra-elite accommodation rather than constitutional integrity.
Senator Kiprotich’s insensitive constitutional amendment initiative is a political project whose sole object is attempt to capture and repurpose the Constitution for political self-interest not public good. It is a distraction from the core economic and debt crunch confronting the country. This is a reflection of the political leadership decay and disconnection facing the country.
The proposed amendments reaffirm the politicians’ erroneous diagnosis of the problems that bedevil Kenya to be arising from the structure of power within government and how that power is shared, and divisive elections and how these elections are politically managed. Since the mid-1990s until the BBI, Kenyan politicians keep complaining about “lack of inclusivity” in Kenya politics. Power-sharing has been the holy grail pursued by Kenyan politicians so that everyone is in the eating trough. Kenya politicians do not have a known standard definition or understanding of power-sharing.
Senator Cheragei’s proposals are incurably defective and incoherent. The incoherence arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of how a presidential system differs from a parliamentary system and the implications of those differences on what is possible or not possible. In fact, part of the reason why the 2010 Constitution has been so badly implemented is because this distinction and its implications are so poorly understood.
To remove this confusion it is important to note that a presidential system is a dual mandate system. This means that the two political branches of government, the executive and legislature, are directly elected. Each has an independent electoral mandate. A Parliamentary system, on the other hand, is a single mandate system, only Parliament is directly elected by the voters. In a presidential system, the government is not in Parliament but in a parliamentary system it is. The 2010 Constitution provides for a presidential system. Consequently, this explains why you cannot have a Leader of Government Business in Parliament and that of an Official Leader of Opposition. Those offices exist in the Parliamentary system.
The Constitution of Kenya 2010 combines two institutional aims. The first aim is to constrain and limit the government. It draws boundaries of what is permissible and what is not permissible, to circumscribe government power. The second aim is core to the constitution’s transformative promise. The government constitutionally required to facilitate political and economic opportunities for the people; that the state has a duty to secure some minimal level of human subsistence; that the state should aim to create a fairer society and that in the use of resources government must consider the unborn in a scheme of inter-generational equity.
Signed
Ndung’u Wainaina
Executive Director
International Center for Policy and Conflict