On January 5, President Uhuru Kenyatta named a nine-member
Cabinet and promised to announce a complete list of his Cabinet “over
the next few weeks.”
Fifteen
days after he made the pronouncement, and 53 days after he took the oath
of office for a second and final term, the high drama over Cabinet
composition plays on. In 2013, it only took him 14 days to name his
first Cabinet, and on his 34th day in office, the 16 Cabinet Secretaries
(CSs) were sworn in.
Against
the backdrop of a Cabinet nomination impasse, a combination of various
interests —regional, ethnic, gender and political among others — have
taken advantage of the situation to lobby.
While
he told the country that he was prepared to get to work immediately he
took office on November 28, it has not only been 53 days since he took
the oath, but President Kenyatta, in the height of irony, also failed
name a CSs for the four key sectors he singled out as key in his
legacy-driven second term. He had named manufacturing, health care,
affordable housing and food security as his Big Four plans—but were not
in the first list of nine Cabinet slots.
Meanwhile,
the related push for “electoral justice” by the Opposition has
similarly encouraged external actors like the European Union Parliament
and the American ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec to call on the
President and Opposition leader, Raila Odinga, to enter into dialogue.
STRONG SIGNALS
Recently, Senate Leader of Minority and
Nasa co-principal Moses Wetang’ula gave the President startling
unsolicited advice to form an all-inclusive Cabinet that includes
individuals from the Opposition. This triggered questions on whether
Nasa had finally recognised Mr Kenyatta as the President—or was sending
strong signals that it was ready for dialogue.
While
Mr Wetang’ula has since claimed he was quoted out of context and
further reiterated that Nasa does not recognise the Kenyatta presidency,
the exclusion of Water minister Mr Eugene Wamalwa from the partial
Cabinet announced on January 5 has left many, especially in Western
Kenya, scratching their heads.
Mr
Wamalwa is not only a close ally of President Kenyatta and Deputy
President William Ruto, but is also seen as the face of the populous
Luhya community in Jubilee. Political watchers, therefore, believe that
if Mr Wamalwa were to be sidelined, he would only be replaced by another
high-profile figure from the region.
In
crafting his new team, the President said he would retain only six CSs
with a statement from State House hours later clarifying that the
remaining 13 CSs had not been sacked.
Political
scientist Adams Oloo thinks that by leaving in limbo all key CSs from
the communities where the four Nasa principals — Mr Raila Odinga, Mr
Kalonzo Musyoka, Mr Musalia Mudavadi and Mr Wetang’ula — draw their
support from, the President could have been passing a subtle message
that there was a window for the opposition.
DISAGREEMENT
But
following days of reported disagreement over the list between the
President and his deputy on the Cabinet formation and the dialogue issue
with Jubilee, Nasa strategist David Ndii has come out to firmly state
that the opposition has no role in the delays in naming the full Cabinet
and “we do not want to be part of that mess because we are not
bargaining with Jubilee over this matter”.
Internally,
however, some Jubilee hardliners are pushing the president to be more
assertive and name the 13 other ministers without giving further hints
of an opposition inclusion.
Leader
of Majority in the National Assembly, Aden Duale declined to be drawn
into discussion on the apparent friction over the Cabinet list, arguing
that it was a sole prerogative of the President. However, he explained
that his parliamentary work was not affected by the delay “since 70 per
cent of my work includes direct consultation with the Executive and so
far so good”.
The Garissa Town
MP said that the President still had one more month to come up with a
Cabinet list: “There is no hurry in doing this. After all we
(Parliament) are on recess until February 14.”
Nonetheless,
the Majority Leader points out that crucial and urgent tasks await the
new Cabinet, including approval of the second supplementary budget and
several pieces of legislation like universal health care and food
security.
“There should be no panic over the perceived
delay because the Speaker (Justin Muturi) and I, plus the relevant
vetting house committee, are ready to dispense off with this matter
within 14 days once the Executive hands over the list of (Cabinet)
nominees,” Mr Duale told the Nation.
DIALOGUE
Except
for independent Kenya’s second President Daniel arap Moi who delayed
the appointment of a Vice President for three months after the 1997
General Election and President Mwai Kibaki, who appointed a partial
Cabinet in 2008 following the post-election violence in a gesture to
accord dialogue a chance, previous administrations have since assembled
the Cabinet without much delay.
Dr
Oloo, attributes the delay to key internal and external factors. The
presidency, he argues, is only but a politically correct terminology.
Otherwise in reality the differences in terms of authority and roles
between a President and Deputy President, as spelt out in the
Constitution, are major. Dr Oloo, says the impasse on the Cabinet
formation may well be an internal matter of disagreement between the
President and his deputy.
Unlike
in 2013, when the two politicians formed a coalition government of The
National Alliance (TNA) and United Republican Party (URP) outfits, the
dissolving of the affiliates and subsequent formation of the Jubilee
Party means Mr Ruto may have lost a major bargaining chip ahead of the
2022 elections.
“There is no
much room for (Mr) Ruto to flex political muscle because there is only
one political party, one party secretariat and one party boss. Yet
still, during a second term, the President is normally not beholden to
individual interests of other players,” says Dr Oloo.
NO RIFT
The
DP has, however, previously conceded that there is only one boss within
the Jubilee Party fraternity – the President – and further denied
existence of a rift between him and Mr Kenyatta. In a recent widely
circulated tweet, Mr Ruto urged Kenyans to “avoid useless political
debates about positions including 2022” and “allow the President the
space to perform his constitutional duty to assemble the team for us”.
Besides
collapsing TNA and URP parties into one, President Kenyatta also
brought on board new outfits to bolster his presidential bid, including
Kanu and several other smaller parties. The President may be persuaded
to include individuals from such entities into his Cabinet, causing
delays.
The much talked about
inclusion of Baringo Senator Gideon Moi in the Cabinet, for instance,
appears to irk Mr Ruto and his allies, despite the warm embrace by
President Kenyatta’s side. The Kanu Chairman hails from Rift Valley
region as the DP, who is keen on taking charge of political situation in
the region.
While in public, the Jubilee Party leaders maintain theirs is not a “nusu mkate”
(coalition) arrangement, in the corridors of power it is generally
acknowledged that the President and the DP loosely “share” positions and
power, especially in various public appointments.
PARTIAL CABINET
It
was, therefore, ironical that by naming a partial Cabinet, President
Kenyatta seemed to be reading straight from President Kibaki’s Grand
Coalition rule book.
The naming
of the Cabinet for Kenya’s quintessential “war time” political marriage
of convenience between President Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU)
and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) was
notoriously difficult.
Mr Ruto
appears to be confronted with similar dilemma as Mr Odinga. The Deputy
President may have been absent when the President named his partial
Cabinet, something seen as a “disagreement”, but his backers still want
to portray the image of a loyal deputy serving at the pleasure of his
boss—which flies in the face of reality as analysts have pointed he has
more clout than Vice Presidents of old.
Yet
still, some pundits claim Mr Ruto “cannot be undermined” and that he is
firmly in charge of his political destiny with his 2022 presidential
bid on the radar. Having played a central role in the presidential
campaign and personally wooed key political players, the DP is
personally under immense pressure to deliver on promises he may have
made to these individuals over Cabinet slots.
The
next few weeks could be decisive as political watchers wait to see if
those perceived to be Mr Ruto’s allies are incorporated into the Cabinet
– but also how the Opposition will react to the new Cabinet and whether
it will seal Nasa’s political fate by co-opting some of its members.
—Additional reporting by Patrick Lang’at
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