PHOTO | FILE Then president Mwai Kibaki during the promulgation of the new constitution on August 27 2010.
NATION MEDIA GROUP
We are used to betrayal. As we mark the
third anniversary since promulgation of the new Constitution, many will
also be thinking of a broken promise. The great new society we were to
build has become mired in the same old, tired, dirty, backward politics
driven by moneyed ethnic warlords with the support of stupid cheering
and jeering masses.
But then we are inured to betrayal, in fact we welcome it and revel in it going by the type of leaders we subject ourselves to.
Right from the onset at Independence in 1963, founding father Jomo Kenyatta betrayed the dream by simply inheriting the colonial economic power structure of the baron and the serf, the land grabber and the dispossessed.
The imperial Kenyatta’s successor, President Daniel arap Moi, took office promising renewed national unity and the end of grand corruption. From Day One he famously stated that a golden bed cannot buy sound sleep, but he bequeathed us slash-and-burn economic policies that drove the country to near ruin, exemplified by his masterpiece — the Goldenberg scandal.
He also happily inherited the colonial and Kenyatta regime policy of divide and rule, splintering Kenya into competing ethnic fiefdoms that made near impossible the creation of one united nation.
The Moi kleptocracy gave way to the supposedly enlightened leadership of President Mwai Kibaki, whose first action was to betray the ‘Rainbow Revolution’ that propelled him to office in an amazing display of Kenyans defying the odds to vote above narrow ethnic lines.
President Kibaki opted instead to recreate his own version of Kenyatta era Kikuyu Mafia, and his own vow to wipe out grand corruption turned out to be so much hot air. His enduring legacy was the Anglo-Leasing scandal.
After a decade of Kibaki, Kenyans opted for President Uhuru Kenyatta’s reincarnation of the Jomo-Moi-Kibaki state rolled into one.
PROMISED VERY LITTLE
Will
Kenyatta II betray the dreams and expectations of Kenyans? Maybe not,
because he actually promised very little. He did not make grand promises
to wipe out corruption and ensure all who looted the national coffers
go to jail.
He did not promise to close the criminal wealth-gap that is one of the widest in the world and to create a more just and equal society. He did not promise serious land reform aimed at redressing the injustices, which, to this day, remain a ticking time bomb.
We were diverted by sterile arguments over laptops for schoolchildren and the whole smoke and mirrors of the promised digital society, but in the meantime we paid scant attention to the rest of the Jubilee coalition manifesto and what it promised.
Do take out that impressive document and have a second look. It is full of lofty promises on economic growth and prosperity, but is deliberately vague on the how.
Actually, other than the laptops thing, it is essentially built on the same template employed by Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi, Martha Karua, Peter Kenneth and the other oddball candidates in the presidential race.
Some hired guns must have
made a good package photocopying campaign manifestos for sale to
presidential candidates with only small amendments.
Anyway, it is Uhuru Kenyatta who is the Big Man today, none of his aforementioned rivals. It is to President Kenyatta and his coalition partner William Ruto that Kenyans look up to ensure implementation of the new Constitution.
Just how faithful were they to the dreams and aspirations that drove Kenyans to pursue that new Constitution for two decades?
Deputy President Ruto was leader of the Red Card naysayers that campaigned against the reformist new constitution because they preferred the reactionary status quo.
He shares power with President Kenyatta, who was at best lukewarm in support of the new Constitution during the referendum campaigns three years ago. But then he was not alone because just as lukewarm was then Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, who earned the dubious ‘watermelon’ tag — green on the outside, red on the inside. The latter was Mr Odinga’s running-mate at the presidential election, running no the reformist agenda!
It would only be fair that despite their history in regard to the new constitution and generally reactionary and rejectionist stance displayed during the referendum campaigns, President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto be given the opportunity to make good on their pledges.
They challenge they face right now is the clamour initially launched by Senators and County governors for constitutional amendments increasing cash subventions to devolved government units securing the role of the Senate vis-à-vis the National Assembly.
The constitutional amendments sought can only be done through a referendum, which in turn must be get the support of at least one million voters.
President Kenyatta’s Jubilee government has come strongly against the proposed referendum, not because of the question at hand but because of the political undertones as it has been seized upon by an opposition looking for relevance.
Mr Odinga’s Cord alliance has abandoned the foolish scheme to tag into the referendum a quest to change the method of electing a president, but is still hell-bent on owning the push started by Governors and Senators.
It wants to turn the initiative into a referendum on the Jubilee administration‘s commitment to devolution. That clearly has the government running scared.
It remains to be seen, however, whether Cord has measured the public’s stomach for a referendum just a few months after a divisive General Election.
A quick and thoroughly unscientific survey tells me that the public right now is not that hungry for a political showdown, especially where few understand what exactly the referendum is about.
GO SLOW ON REFERENDUM
That
is why I would propose we go slow on the referendum and first properly
frame the specific constitutional amendments sought. Here we should
focus not just selfish demands by Governors and Senators for a bigger
piece of the pie or a leg up the pecking order, but a genuine move to
remove the grey areas on relationships between central and county
governments; and the specific lines roles and function of the Senate and
the National Assembly.
Arbitrarily plucking figures out of thin air will not properly address the issue of revenue sharing. Perhaps that’s a model we need to entirely rethink so that county government are funded mostly by the taxes they generate rather than depending on cash transfers form central government.
That will mean reworking the entire tax code to clearly define national and county taxes. We at the same time must ensure that the citizens and corporate are not taxed to death.
We also need amendments that give life and meaning to the Senate. The irony here is that those Senators crying that they have been neutered are the selfsame MPs in past life who during the constitution -making process conspired to water down the powers and functions of the Senate.
At present what we have is Senate not worth the name, one that would not be missed if it was abolished. Therefore if we see a role for it, we must redefine it so it plays a real role in the legislative process.
We also need constitutional amendments to better secure human and civil right, and also cure the mischief perpetrated when the political classes conspired to make redundant the ethics and integrity provisions in the leadership code.
Is it the UhuRuto regime that when ‘personal challenges’ like the upcoming trials at The Hague are at stake?
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I have learnt from Twitter updates by activist Boniface Mwangi that some of his compatriots were arrested and maltreated over the weekend for taking photographs of Jomo Kenyatta’s Mausoleum at Parliament buildings.
What is this obsession with ‘No Photography’, ‘No Entry’ rules that serve absolutely no security imperative?
I
have been to Kwame Nkrumah’s a burial place in Accra where I posed for
photographs right inside what is a major tourist attraction.
When I visited our State House not too ago, the most prominent signboard on approach is that ‘No Photography’ sign. But go to the White House in Washington DC, 10 Downing Street in London, The Kremlin in Moscow and the Great Hall of the People by Tiananmen Square in Beijing; and far from photography being banned, it is encouraged.
All those places are magnets for millions of tourists, and even offer guided tours within their hallowed precincts.
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