President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, bitter
rivals in the last two disputed presidential elections, initiated a
surprise truce, popularly known as the ‘Handshake’, on March 9, 2018.
PHOTO | AFP
After maintaining a largely laid-back stance over the ongoing
constitutional reforms debate in Kenya in the past one and half years,
President Uhuru Kenyatta had a rather busy January trying to lay the law
to a faction within the ruling Jubilee Party opposed to his closeness
with opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Mr
Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, bitter rivals in the last two disputed
presidential elections, initiated the reforms process following their
surprise truce, popular as the ‘Handshake’, on March 9, 2018.
The
two leaders have sought to sell their agenda under the Building Bridges
Initiative (BBI) as some sort of the silver bullet for ending the
ethnic violence that has perennially blighted elections.
But
the fact that the BBI has also raised Mr Odinga’s profile a notch,
including giving him some undefined role in government, has unsettled a
section of politicians in the ruling party who see him as supplanting
Deputy President William Ruto in the race to succeed Mr Kenyatta in
2022.
OPEN REBELLION
The
President has in the past sought to stay above the fray, maintaining
everyone was free to express his or her view on the reform agenda.
In recent months though what initially passed
for opposition to Mr Odinga and BBI appeared to boil over into an open
rebellion against Mr Kenyatta and his administration.
Of
more concern to Mr Kenyatta, the epicentre of the revolt emerged right
in his traditional political base in central Kenya and parts of Rift
Valley.
In the October 2017 repeat
presidential election boycotted by Mr Odinga’s supporters, the votes
from the two regions together with Nairobi accounted for about 80 per
cent of Mr Kenyatta’s tally.
The party dissenters couldn’t have chosen a better time to take on the President.
An
economic downturn in the past two years has put pressure on small
business people and farmers across the country amid a cash crunch and
low farm produce prices.
In central
Kenya, where many households rely on farming income, the pro-Ruto
faction has had a field day blaming Mr Kenyatta for the local people’s
woes and stoking grievance against his administration.
RUTHLESS PURGE
To
try to fend off the rebellion, Mr Kenyatta in January embarked on a
stick and carrot plan meant to isolate and tame individual dissenters
while pacifying the general population.
On
the same day he announced a generous economic stimulus package,
including subsidies for coffee and dairy farming, he also fired Mwangi
Kiunjuri as the Cabinet minister for Agriculture.
Mr
Kiunjuri, an ambitious politician who has in the past represented
Laikipia East Constituency in Parliament for three terms, is thought to
be a prospective running mate for Mr Ruto in 2022.
The
latest victim of Mr Kenyatta’s ruthless purge on party rebels is
Ferdinand Waititu, the governor of Kiambu County who was impeached on
Wednesday by the Senate for abuse of office.
By
the time of his impeachment Mr Waititu, the burly politician who
initially boosted his profile hurling stones at slum land grabbers as
the MP of Nairobi’s Embakasi Constituency, was already a widely
unpopular figure in the county, blamed for graft and dispossessing a
widow.
A court order banned him from setting foot in the governor’s office due to corruption charges.
JUBILEE FAULT LINES
But
his troubles at the Senate have been linked to the falling-out within
the ruling party that has seen the faction loyal to Mr Ruto disparage
his boss at public rallies.
The Waititu impeachment magnified the fault lines in Jubilee and the post-Handshake realignments.
Senators
allied to the president voting with the opposition to remove the
governor from office and the pro-Ruto group losing the battle to save
him.
Mr Kenyatta will no doubt be
hoping that the shock waves of Waititu’s fall in Kiambu reverberate far
and wide in his traditional political base in central Kenya and parts of
Rift Valley.
The fierceness with
which the president has come out to shield the BBI from the dissenters
also suggests that he is staking his second-term legacy on
constitutional reforms.
EXPANDED EXECUTIVE
In
mid-January, he decreed the extension of the term of the task force
appointed in May 2018 to steer the reforms by another six months to June
30.
The team, originally named the
Building Bridges Initiative task force, handed its report to Mr Kenyatta
last November, recommending an expanded executive that makes it
possible to accommodate a few more of the country’s influential
political elites in power.
A key
proposal in the first the Building Bridges Initiative report is the
creation of the post of the prime minister and the appointment of
Cabinet ministers from among MPs.
The
final document could extend the power structure to include deputy prime
ministers and 14 regional governors amid concerns in some quarters that
the task force did not go far enough the last time out.
It
is widely expected that the latest process will culminate in a
constitutional referendum later this year, with Mr Kenyatta leading the
‘Yes’ campaign.
The pro-Kenyatta
teams have already presided over mammoth rallies in the three counties
of Kisii, Kakamega and Mombasa. More are planned countrywide since
almost all county governors appear to have thrown their lot behind the
Uhuru-Raila reform train.
However, what stands out are elements of the pro-Ruto brigade seeming to fall back on their initial hard-line positions.
Factions
of it have held press conferences vowing to fall in line and back the
BBI by taking part in the scheduled rallies. Yet others propose calling
separate rallies to publicly express their fealty to the BBI.
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