Tribal Structure of Kibaki's Cabinet

Kenyans become real tribalists when they look at the Cabinet and the choice of Ministers in it. Tribes claim the ownerships of whole ministries when their son or daughter heads it. That is why Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga had a complex task of creating a Cabinet that considered every region. The exercise went beyond party differences despite the provisions of Section 17 (3) of the Constitution which says the Cabinet shall be collectively responsible to the National Assembly for all the things done by or under the authority of the President or the Vice-President or any other Minister in the execution of his office. That collective responsibility is a smoke screen Kenyans look at as they consider individual Ministers in terms of the tribes they come from.

Yet in an effort to form an all inclusive government of the people, Mwai Kibaki has succeeded in arm-twisting taxpayers of Kenya who will have to pay through their noses to maintain the new Cabinet. To have people from all corners of the country join the powerful Kikuyu elite in ruling Kenya, will cost an arm and a leg and the victims are ordinary Kenyans. Yet, this time, it will be almost impossible for the traditional Kibaki critics from the Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western provinces to continue accusing Kikuyus of political hegemony when a huge number of them have agreed to serve in the President’s Government.

The Cabinet named by Kibaki has no less than five powerful Luos in it. Both the Kalenjins[1] and Luhya[2] political leaderships are heavily represented in the new set up. Though the Gema community will continue to hold a lot of powers in the Government including the ministries of Finance, Energy, Justice and Constitutional Affairs, a major transformation has taken place by surrendering Medical Services, Lands, Immigration, Registering of Persons and Public Services to Luo leaders from ODM.[3]

Kalenjins from the same party will now control Agriculture, Industrialization, Roads, Higher Education, Science and Technology. Apart from the Attorney General’s Office, Luhyas from both PNU and ODM will control Forestry and Wildlife, Housing, Fisheries Development, Regional Development, Foreign Affairs and Local Government. With Kikuyus, Luos, Kalenjins and Luhyas backing the new Kibaki Administration, its survival may last longer than many anticipated. To begin with all the top politicians from these communities have prominent positions in the Government and all of them would obviously like to keep their jobs for as long as possible.

Besides that the Kamba people back Kibaki’s Government for simply appointing Kalonzo Musyoka the Vice President. The small group in the tribe that opposes Musyoka normally supports Charity Ngilu who is also a Minister in Kibaki’s Government. So the Kamba people as a whole support the new Kibaki regime.

All the MPs who missed Kibaki’s boat in the formation of the new Cabinet are likely to form a formidable opposition led by politicians like Gitobu Imanyara and Ababu Namwamba. Because Kibaki made changes in his Government on the basis of the strength of various ethnic groups, Kenya’s political development will have to embark on an era of another serious tribal campaign for his succession. The appointment of Uhuru Kenyatta as a Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Trade clearly shows the President would like to groom Uhuru to be the next tenant at State House.

The new position provides Kenyatta with both local and international platforms to popularize himself for the next five years before he confronts Raila and Kalonzo in the next presidential race in 2012. The winner of that tough contest will depend on how successfully political parties will be reorganized to introduce democracy in them. It seems like the voters of that time will have little respect for any political party that is a personal property of an individual politician, tribal nationalism notwithstanding.

In the new power structure the party with ministries closer to the people and therefore with the greatest opportunity to have an upper hand in 2012 is ODM. For example as Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi will have the opportunity to travel across the country on Government expenses as the Minister for Local Government popularizing ODM to the converted controlling the majority of local governments in the country. As the most powerful politician in the Rift Valley, William Ruto is likely to strengthen his political status through his Ministry of Agriculture which all the farmers now desperately need to return the country to the pre-election resemblance of prosperity.

Following the post election conflicts which made hundreds of thousands homeless the Ministry of Land will play a major role in bringing about real peace in the country through resettling the IDPs in either the old homes or new ones. That responsibility will be handled by the ODM under James Orengo who will most probably waste little time in making both his party and leader Raila Odinga popular. The newly settled people will most likely be very loyal to whoever gives them back their lost land.

Looking at the Cabinet from an ethnic point of view reveals two disgruntled groups that feel their tribes have not had a fair deal in the establishment of the grand coalition. One of these groups is, paradoxically, made up of young Kikuyus from Kiambu and Muranga. As soon as the new Cabinet was announced, young, newly elected MPs from the area publicly claimed Kibaki had forgotten them. They include, Tito Nguyai, the new MP for Kikuyu constituency, Jamleck Kamau, MP for Kagumo, Maina Kamau, MP for Kandara, Elias Mbau, MP for Muranga, Peter Mwathi, MP for Limuru and Ngoyo Kioni, the MP for Ndaragwa.

What kind of impact their complaints will have on Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki is not clear yet, but it is strange that their complaints come at a time when Mungiki terror gangsters from Muranga and Kiambu have caused mayhem and death of scores of people in the city and constituencies represented by the complaining MPs. How much influence the young MPs from Central Province have on the Mungiki gangsters or whether the two are connected at all is not easy to tell.

The fact that Mungiki is made up of young people who recently elected the complaining MPs adds weight to the suspicion that the two are connected and that the real reason the Mungiki are protesting is the fact that their MPs are not in the Cabinet. Another reason could be the perception that Kibaki has surrendered too much power to non Kikuyus making the Gema community much weaker in the Government.

The second group that is opposing the new Cabinet for ethnic reasons is the Kipsigis group of MPs from the Rift Valley. Comprising of the MP for Kuresoi, Zakayo Cheruiyot, the MP for Konoin, Dr. Kipyegon Kones, the MP for Buret, Franklin Bett, the MP for Belgut, Charles Keter and the MP for Kipkelion, Makarer Langat the group has publicly condemned the Kibaki/Raila Cabinet for not including more Kipsigis people in it. So far only Kipkaliya Kones, who is a prominent Kipsigis, sits in the new Cabinet as the Minister for Roads. The other is Lorna Loboso who is only an assistant minister.

The anger of the Kipsigis people will make it extremely difficult to resettle the displaced people on their former farms in the Rift Valley. As a matter of fact they have threatened to pull out of ODM, the party they supported in the last general and presidential elections. Almost all the Kalenjins in the new cabinet, including the powerful Minister for Agriculture William Ruto, are Nandis. Though the Nandis and Kipsigis are both Kalenjins, they can be divided on political matters particularly in the distribution of influential positions in the Government.

The political reality in Kenya is that to belong to the Cabinet one has to have a silent sponsorship of his or her tribe. The positions are exclusively reserved for people who command respect in their own tribes. How they will collectively exercise governmental authority under Raila and Kibaki remains to be seen.



[1] The Kalenjins in the Cabinet include William Ruto (Agriculture), Henry Kosgey (Industrialization) Kipkaliya Kones (Roads) Sally Kosgei (Higher Education Science and Technology). With the exception of Kones all the others are Kalenjin Nandis. He is a Kipsigis.
[2] The Luhyas from PNU are Moses Wetangula ( Foreign Affairs) Soita Shitanda ( Housing) and Nosh Wekesa ( Forestry and Wild Life ) and from PNU there are Deputy Prime Minister Moses Mudavadi ( Local Government), Wycliffe Oparanya ( National Development), Fred Gumo ( Regional Development) and Paul Otuoma ( Fisheries Development)
[3] Apart from Raila himself other Luos in the Cabinet include Anyang Nyongo who is the new Minister for Medical Services, James Orengo (Lands), Dalmas Otieno (Public Service) and Otieno Kajwang (Immigration and Registration of Persona). Raila’s own brother, Dr. Oburu Odinga is the Assistant Minister at the Treasury.