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.