Raila: Parliament Stands In The Way For New Constitution

Parliament could be the biggest impediment in realizing a new constitution according to Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. He made this allusion while addressing the closing session of the Regional Conference On Constitutional Democracy In Africa In The 21^st Century, held in Nairobi recently. The Parliamentary Select Committee is one of the organs proposed by the new bills that are about to be taken to Parliament by the Justice Minister, Martha Karua. According to Raila, there are concerns whether or not the Parliamentary Select Committee will be able to achieve consensus on the contentious issues and what the next steps would be if they fail to do so.

The concerns raised by the Prime Minister are valid given the background of what has been transpiring in Parliament recently. This is in addition to serious divisions between Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Party of National Unity (PNU) differences brought to the fore during the post-election crisis occasioned by disputed election results.

Of serious concern is the clamor by some MPs, who felt slighted after they failed to get plum ministerial appointments when the national accord was signed between Raila’s ODM and President Kibaki’s PNU culminating in the Grand Coalition Government. This group of MPs led by first time legislator Ababu Namwamba and Cyrus Jirongo are pushing for recognition of a parliamentary opposition and have gone ahead to publish a bill to this effect.

While the group has been receiving support from some PNU ministers, the move has been categorically opposed by the ODM leaders, led by the Prime Minister. But in actual sense the fear of this parliamentary opposition runs through both sides of government. The fear is that the opposition, if allowed, could paralyze government operations by making it hard for parliament to pass crucial bills. That is why there are threats to ‘expel’ the MPs if they continue to clamor for recognition as opposition. The threats include invoking parliamentary standing orders which forbid an MP elected by one party from declaring support for another party. Essentially, the MP is deemed to have ‘defected’ and is therefore required to resign from parliament and seek fresh mandate from his/her constituency.

What is at stake is that the new bills commit the government to delivering a new constitution within 12 months after the bills are passed by parliament. Whatever the outcome of the clamor for opposition recognition, there are serious fears that these differences could extent to the Parliamentary Select Committee if these MPs are able to marshal enough numbers into the committee, with a potential of derailing the constitution review process. This could in effect seriously undermine the efforts of the coalition government to realise a new constitution, signaling a failure by GCG. In other words, Kibaki will have failed to leave the legacy of a new constitution while Raila’s reform credentials will come into focus.

This is what is at stake.

The Constitution Kenyans Want

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Recent pronouncements by politicians on both sides of the Kenyan coalition government has thrown the constitution debate into a fresh spin. While everyone agrees that there is a need for a new constitution to address past governance inadequacies and provide a modern goverance framework, a time-table as to how and when we will have a new constitution has not been forthcoming from our political leadership. Listening to both Deputy Prime Ministers Mudavadi and Uhuru recently, the debate has been reduced to political shadow boxing and contests as to which side is 'more' serious with the implementation of a new constitution.

But i will surprise you today. None in the political class is keen on implementing a new constitution. The current constitution provides 'real' power to the executive arm of the government and any politician or aspiring politician salivates at the prospect of execising such powers. Winning the presidency under the current constitution is the trophy every politician seeks to bag. That is why i promise you that we are in for a long ride.

A new constitution will be a major coup for the majority of Kenyans. It is envisaged that a new constitution will transfer power of governance from the political elite to the normal wananchi (citizens). The question i have been asking myself is whether there is a way for the us as citizens to come up with our own draft constitution and then prevail upon the government to adopt it.

The purpose of this blog is to invite fellow Kenyans and wellwishers to contribute ideas that we can use to draft a new constitution. The politicians have deliberately slowed down this process and it will be dangerous for us to continue waiting for them. I will not be surprised if we go for the 2012 elections with the current constitution.

But first i think we start with what we have and what we know. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We have the Bomas draft and also Naivasha/Kilifi drafts. We know that both drafts are acceptable to most people to the extent of around 80%. Our work here will be to identify the 20% in both drafts that is acceptable by some people and not acceptable by others. Using this process, we will be able to merge both drafts and come up with one that is acceptable by the majority of Kenyans.

My suggestion is that we start with either of the drafts, publish the contents of each chapter, we debate the contents of the chapter for around one week, then i will publish what has been agreed by the majority of contributors as the final content of the chapter. Once we complete one draft we move to the next, but chapters tackled in the previous draft are not debated again. After completing debate on both, we will then move to possible ommissions from both drafts. We will then be in a position to do our final draft.

What do you think?