Draft Constitution boosts Raila’s chances

The Draft Constitution is the closest Kenya has come to establishing a truly democratic society. It obviously favours those who have been struggling to establish such a society where political leadership is transparent and accountable to the people. One such person is Raila Odinga. His long struggle to demolish an imperial presidency has been fulfilled by Nzamba Kitonga’s success in coming up with a document that eradicates all the past despotic evils of dictatorial presidents. The evils came in the form of concentrating too much power in the hands of the demigod Presidents.

In a country where political survival has, for a long time, depended on tribal hegemony of ethnic supremacists, Nzamba Kitonga and the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Mutula Kilonzo, as the two people who steered the formulation of the Draft, would have been accused of boosting their own tribe if Raila Odinga was a Kamba. The fact that both Mutula and Nzamba happen to be Kambas is a sheer coincidence. Similarly the accusations of the Draft Constitution appearing to support Raila are misconceived perceptions based on ignorance and lack of understanding of recent political development in Kenya.

An unbiased examination of those developments will clearly reveal that political parties in Kenya are by and large ethnic institutions under the leadership of ambitious tribal chiefs camouflaged as national leaders. That is with the exception of the Raila’s Orange Democratic Party which, though personally controlled by the Prime Minister, is a national party with leaders from all corners of the country. Sure enough, the most powerful political position in Kenya, if the draft Constitution is accepted by the people, will be that of the Prime Minister. But no one can dream of becoming a Prime Minister in Kenya if he or she does not lead a powerful political party capable of winning the majority of seats in the Legislature.

The only way to make sure that Raila does not become the first powerful executive Prime Minister after the 2012 elections is to remove him from the leadership of the ODM in a democratic manner. The other way is to establish a powerful non tribal political party to rival the ODM in every part of the country before 2012. Such an undertaking would be an uphill task for leaders who are already stigmatized as both tribal and hegemonic monsters.

Given the fact that there have been two Presidents from the Central Province there is little wonder that MPs from that area are still lamentably calling for an imperial President. Arguing that because the Draft Constitution demands that the President gets the mandate of the people before occupying State House, and therefore the elected President deserves to have more powers than what they call “unelected” Prime Minister, the MPs’ hope is to confuse Kenyans and make them reject Nzamba’s proposals. In that confusion may be a man from Central Province, hopefully Uhuru Kenyatta, could end up the third Kikuyu President for Kenya. Such a wishful thinking is building castles in the air. It would take an unusually clever conjurer’s trick to convince Kenyans that the next executive President should come from Kiambu.

The claim that the Draft Constitution favours a Prime Minister who is not elected by the people is as misleading as it is malicious. To qualify to be a Prime Minister one has to be the leader of the largest political party or coalition parties represented in the national assembly. Political parties don’t become the largest parties in the national assembly without the consent of the people. As a matter of fact to achieve that goal, a political party has to be national and acceptable to diverse people of Kenya, which is far more difficult than receiving more than half of all the vote cast in the presidential election even though it also requires at least twenty five percent of the vote cast in the majority of the regions.

It is also wrong and most misleading to claim that the Draft Constitution crates an office of a figurehead President. The elected President of Kenya after 2012 would be a very powerful person with very well elaborated State functions as well as Legislative functions which can hardly be described as duties of an impotent Head of State. For anyone to exercise those powers he or she should rightly get the consent of the people. By getting his or her many candidates win elections in the majority of the constituencies in various parts of the country the Prime Minister would have demonstrated clearly to have the support of the people.

There are many possible positive outcomes of the Draft Constitution. One of them would be the establishment of national political parties that are not parochially tribal. These would be parties that would compete on ideological differences rather than ethnic diversity. Briefcase political parties will be a thing of the past. The demand by the Draft Constitution to have regular elections in political parties would also introduce badly needed internal democracy in political parties. Being the most favoured person by the new Draft, Raila is likely to spend more time revamping and strengthening the ODM. Holding the already powerful position of Prime Minister he is likely to perform that duty so magnificently that very soon ODM will have offices where there will be long queues of people seeking party membership.

Knowing very well the power of the Kikuyu vote in any election in Kenya, a special recruitment ODM team is likely to be formulated in Central Province to fish for Kikuyu membership, particularly among the Kikuyu youth and even among the members of the Mungiki clandestine organization. Raila’s friendly approach in dealing with the Mungiki menace is a very well calculated political maneuver which Agwambo is a master of.

Despite its popularity ODM has its own internal problems caused by the rebellious William Ruto and Najib Balala. Their departure from the party means Raila will pay special attention to the party development in both the Rift Valley and the Coast provinces. In both places the Prime Minister has identified people who can easily step into Ruto and Balala’s shoes. Raila’s job in doing this will be made very easy by national mobilization against tribal politics. Stigmatizing Ruto as a tribal leader, however, may be a lot easier than disgracing the non tribal Arab Balala who can only be fought by reminding the coastal Mijikenda people of the dishonorable historical role of the Arabs in that part of the world. That Raila can do most effectively through his charismatic public attraction.

To get the massive support of the Luhya people Raila is likely to groom Musalia Mudavadi as the country’s next President. It will not be surprising at all if Raila starts grooming some young man or woman for the position of Deputy President. Very much like Moi, Raila will soon start using top Government positions, including that of the Deputy Prime Minister as political baits to win popular support from all parts of the country. This method is likely to work wonders for Raila who is sure to be the Prime Minister of Kenya from 2012 for a very long time to come because, unlike the position of the President, there is no limited term of office for the premier.