President Mwai Kibaki’s nominations of four highly qualified Kenyan personalities for the positions of the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecution and Controller of Budget are extremely controversial. He has made them without consulting the Prime Minister as it is required by the new Constitution.
No one can claim that the nomination of Alnashir Visram for the post of the country’s next Chief Justice was a mistake because the appellate Judge is not only respected among his peers but he also happens to be highly qualified. The President can also not be accused of selecting a misfit for the position of the Attorney General since Professor Githu Muigai is an extremely respected lawyer both in legal and academic circles.
In terms of qualifications and experience the President made the right choice when he nominated Kioko Kilukumi for the position of the Director of Public Prosecutions because the nominee has very impressive credentials. No one can quarrel with the President’s choice of William Kirwa as the country’s Controller of Budget because Kirwa is also a highly qualified person.
Good as Kibaki’s choices are, however, they fall short of following the constitutional requirements which demand that he consults with the Prime Minister before he makes such appointments. As far as the appointment of the Chief Justice is concerned he has not only to consult with the Prime Minister but he has also got to involve the Judicial Service Commission. According to Article 166 (1) of the new Constitution the President shall appoint the Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice, in accordance with the recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission, and subject to the approval of the National Assembly.
When the country was wondering whether the Justice Alnashir Visram was recommended to the President by the Judicial Service Commission or whether he still had to be vetted by the Commission before taking over the top job after his clearance by Parliament, the JSC dropped a bombshell by rejecting Kibaki’s nominations. That rejection may make it extremely difficult for Speaker Kenneth Marende to allow the debate on Kibaki’s nominations to be tabled in Parliament before it is absolutely clear that the two principals see eye to eye on that matter.
The move by the JSC is particularly harmful to the President because the current Chief Justice, Evan Gicheru, chaired the meeting that nullified the nominations. At the meeting was the current Attorney General, Amos Wako. This makes the rejection of the President’s nominations even more credible. No sooner did JSC reject Kibaki’s nomination than the Chairman of Parliament’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, Ababu Namwamba, vowed never to table the nominations in Parliament for MPs to approve or disapprove unless the constitutional procedure was strictly followed by the President.
To make matters worse the Committee on Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) took a similar firm stand against the President, making the nominations illegal. If Kibaki decides to go to court to demand his nominations to be recognized by the law, the chances are that his demands would be rejected. Not even his own Attorney General supports him on this matter.
If, in an unlikely event, the Speaker allows the vetting of the nominees by the MPs to go ahead despite the controversy surrounding the whole exercise, Parliament is likely to approve the nominations since the KKK in National Assembly are now the majority in the House. As Parliament examines President’s nominees, eyebrows will inevitably be considerably raised by the sheer coincidence of the selected personalities’ ethnic origin.
Ether coincidentally or deliberately Kibaki nominated Muigai, a Kikuyu, Kilukumi, a Kamba and Kirwa, a Kalenjin for the top Constitutional positions. Whether the respected nominated personalities sympathize with, or have any respect for, the KKK leadership Kenyans are likely to perceive the nominations as Kibaki’s deliberate maneuvering tactic to get the KKK support in Parliament for his nomination. Kibaki is certain to get that support from the majority of Parliamentarians because of his selection’s ethnic background rather than for the fact that they are highly qualified people.
If Marende allows the nomination debate to take place the KKK’s power in Parliament will be put to test with a likelihood of bloc voting to prove the tribal group is a power to reckon with. Kibaki’s selection is sure to go through. If that happens, Muigai and Kirwa may have no choice as judicial officers but to step down as their nominations have been rejected by the JSC. As for Alnashir Visram whose appointment as the country’s next Chief Justice depends on the recommendation of the JSC, he has no option but to reject Kibaki’s offer. This means, whether Kibaki likes it or not, he will have to consult Raila Odinga once more on the appointment of the Chief Justice.
Without the new Chief Justice in office there can be no hope of ever deferring the Kenyan case now pending in The Hague. It is a shame that the country can be bogged down on semantics of consultation. KKK claims the mere mentioning of the subject of nominations of top Constitutional positions by the President to the Prime Minister amounts to consulting him. This is regardless of the PM’s acceptance or rejection of the President’s choices which may even be made in a casual manner.
As the Prime Minister argues with the stubborn KKK over the legal meaning of the term “consultation” the country knows that both Raila and Kibaki cannot be right. One of them must be wrong. Whereas the now powerful KKK in Parliament supports the President’s interpretation, the law and the people of Kenya support the Prime Minister.
On the issue of new appointments the new Constitution is very clear. It says in Section 29 (2) of Transitional and Consequential Provisions of the Sixth Schedule that the President shall, subject to the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, appoint a person after consultation with the Prime Minister and with the approval of the National Assembly.
If there is any law that puts the whole argument about the meaning of the word “consultation” as it is used in the new Constitution to rest, that law is the National Accord and Reconciliation Act of 2008, which unambiguously says that the coalition must be a partnership with commitment on both sides to govern together and push through the reform agenda for the benefit of all Kenya. Yet there is absolutely nothing that threatens the reform agenda, and indeed also threatens the implementation of the new Constitution, as the KKK.
According to Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo KKK’s main objective is to work against the new Constitution by making sure it will never be implemented in its present form. The two are just confirming the suspicion of many pundits who predicted that the opponents of the new Constitution would try to use Parliament to frustrate its implementation efforts.
Among the most authoritative sources of that prediction was the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) Review Report of October last year which warned that anti-reformers could sabotage the implementation process. The report said the anti reformers had regrouped and formed political and bureaucratic alliances to frustrate the reform process. It said in the run up to the referendum, the anti-reformers had buttressed the numbers of the undecided (colloquially referred to as ‘water melons’ to denote people who were green for Yes, and red for No).
Because of the passion with which such groups protect self-interests, said the report ,it is possible that they will use the bureaucracy and their political influence to develop legislation of a low standard or ensure that proposed legislation protects the status quo. The KNDR then called for vigilance because the anti-reform forces including the ‘water melons’ could take over the implementation of the Constitution. If they do, KNDR warned, the old order will prevail, and the country will revert from a reform mode to ‘business as usual’.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Kibaki’s strange relation with KKK
The so called reconciliation rally attended by President Mwai Kibaki as the guest of honour in Eldoret on 21st January 2011 was an eye opener to most Kenyans. It exposed the Head of State as a clandestine supporter of the KKK. Apart from that it also showed him as a very gullible victim of tribal nationalism which makes him harbour very unusual relationship with the KKK. Either way the rally told Kenyans that efforts to make the next general election a tribal affair have now taken a new dimension with the support of a very powerful section of the coalition Government.
If ever Kenyans fall into the KKK trap and organize themselves along tribal lines for the next year’s general elections then the danger of ending up with yet another tribal confrontation, with the consequences of real bloodbath which will probably be worse than what the country saw in 2007-08, are very real. Fortunately the Eldoret rally was seen by most Kenyans as a futile attempt to balkanize the country tribally to benefit the political class that has dominated Kenya for almost half a century.
What is more, the Eldoret rally had absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation between the Kikuyus and Kalenjins. It was a deceitful game of building castles in the air through creating an imaginary political smokescreen of Kenya being led by Uhuru Kenyatta as the new President and William Ruto as his Deputy or vice versa.
Everyone present knew the game was simply a fictitious ploy to hoodwink the people of Kenya and especially the Kikuyus and Kalenjins to make them not face some fundamental problems confronting them. To being with the wounds caused by the post election violence between the two tribes are still fresh and far from showing any signs of healing. The animosity runs extremely deep with hundreds of thousands of Kikuyu IDPs languishing in ramshackle tents made of torn canvas and plastic waste.
These are people who, before the post election clashes, lived very comfortably in their well developed farms now being occupied by Kalenjins who took the land from the Kikuyus through the most barbaric methods which included mass murders, rape and arson. Kikuyus, on the other hand, organized themselves through the Mungiki gangster militia that hit back at the Kalenjins in more or less the same barbaric method. That is why Ruto and Uhuru are today wanted by Luis Moreno-Ocampo in The Hague.
When politicians meet in public rallies such as the one in Eldoret and talk about Kalenjin –Kikuyu reconciliation they know very well that a lot more needs to be done apart from Kenyatta and Ruto holding hands on a political platform in front of the Head of State. Unless the Kikuyus are given back their farms they will never forgive the Kalenjins. Yet the Kalenjins believe the land they took from the Kikuyus was and still is their own ancestral property.
The problem between the Kalenjins and Kikuyus could only be solved through a properly functioning TJRC which would lay all the cards on the table before suggesting a solution. Unfortunately the TJRC is itself almost dead because it started on a wrong footing with an unacceptable Bethwel Kiplagat as its chairman. Without a proper TJRC, animosity between communities can only be solved through pretentious games of dramatic tragicomedies such as the one witnessed in Eldoret last Friday.
At the Eldoret rally Ruto and all his Kalenjin MPs knew very well that they would never welcome back the Kikuyus in the farms now occupied by their people, despite the fact that Kibaki’s main goal of going to the rally was to get his Kikuyu people back to their farms. On the other hand, Kibaki also knew very well that he would never accept William Ruto back into his Cabinet when he is a wanted criminal both locally and internationally. Yet Kalenjins’ conditionality of having the Kikuyus back to their farms was to have Ruto back in the Cabinet. The mutual arm-twisting between the Kalenjins and the President complicated the deceitful game at the Eldoret rally.
Apart from the ridiculous game of public pretense to solidify the unity in KKK, that tribal organization is facing an extremely serious legal problem. It is, in fact, for all practical purposes, a prohibited illegal organization. The Constitution does not allow the existence of such a dogmatically intolerant entity to survive camouflaged as a political group. That is why its leaders are in a terrible panic. They are hurriedly trying to establish an acceptable political body to replace it.
As seasoned politicians the leaders of the intolerable KKK, Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka and William Ruto, have read the writing on the wall and realized that their tribal institution is facing a massive rejection by the people. The move to get a new political party established before next year’s presidential election is itself faced with a subterranean divisive threat. Whose political party will be acceptable to all the three leaders?
Ruto is planning to move to the little known United Democratic Movement (UDM) while Uhuru has just announced a move to register the so called PNU Alliance, which brings together the same people who are in the almost dead old PNU, which includes Kalonzo Musyoka’s ODM-K. The possible unity between UDM, ODM-K and PNU Alliance will probably be the new face of the KKK, which is bound to face the same misfortune of total rejection by the people of Kenya because it will not have changed anything in the tribal aspirations of the rejected KKK.
Whatever the three musketeers of the KKK do they have a major problem of establishing an acceptable political vehicle with which to confront Raila’s Odinga’s formidable ODM. Long before that vehicle has been established a number of major hurdles appear to be confronting the three tribal kingpins of the KKK. First they have to obey the law; and the law is now governed by the new Constitution which has very strict requirements to be followed by those who want to establish credible national political parties in this country.
According to Article 38 of the new Constitution every citizen is free to make political choices, which includes the right to form, or participate in forming, a political party; to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party; or to campaign for a political party or cause. If that was all that the new constitution said about political parties, in the Bill of Rights, then the KKK leaders would have had a field day in continuing to confuse Kenyans by forming all sorts of political parties just before elections in order to attract people along tribal lines.
Indeed that is how both PNU and ODM-K were formed. Whereas the former is a party of the Kikuyus, Embus and Merus of the Mount Kenya region, the later is certainly a party of the Kamba people. The drafters of the new Constitution led by Nzamba Kitonga knew very well that the right to form political parties had to be included in the Bill of Rights. But they also knew that that right could be abused by the political class in Kenya that has all the time survived through ownership of such tribal political parties.
To solve that serious problem that indeed went against the very spirit of proper Bills of right, the drafters of the new constitution came up with very wonderful protection of the people’s rights in Chapter Seven on Representation of the people. Nzamba Kitonga and his team saved the people of Kenya through Article 91 of the new Constitution which demands every political party in the new Kenya to have a national character as prescribed by an Act of Parliament.
The new Constitution demands political parties to have a democratically elected governing body; promote and uphold national unity; abide by the democratic principles of good governance, promote and practise democracy through regular, fair and free elections within the party; respect the right of all persons to participate in the political process, including minorities and marginalized groups. All these are qualities which lacked in almost all political parties in Kenya except the ODM, which has also got an uphill task of shedding off the stigma that it personally belongs to Raila Odinga.
The new Constitution demands all political parties to respect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and gender equality and equity; promote the rule of law; and subscribe to and observe the code of conduct for political parties. The new Constitution categorically prohibits political parties that are founded on a religious, linguistic, racial, ethnic, gender or regional basis or seek to engage in advocacy of hatred on any such basis. According to the new Constitution, therefore, the KKK itself would be a prohibited organization.
That is obviously one of the reasons for the rush to form political parties that appear to be national when in reality they will be well known tribal associations no different from the KKK. Apart from everything else Article 77(2) of the new Constitution states any appointed State officer shall not hold office in a political party. If KKK wins the next general lection and Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto become the country’s new President and Deputy President they will not be allowed to hold office in a political party. Even if, in the unlikely event, Uhuru and Ruto end up to be the President and Vice President of Kenya the tribal parties that will put them in power will be in fact without any nationally recognized leaders. A very terrible eventuality to imagine!
If ever Kenyans fall into the KKK trap and organize themselves along tribal lines for the next year’s general elections then the danger of ending up with yet another tribal confrontation, with the consequences of real bloodbath which will probably be worse than what the country saw in 2007-08, are very real. Fortunately the Eldoret rally was seen by most Kenyans as a futile attempt to balkanize the country tribally to benefit the political class that has dominated Kenya for almost half a century.
What is more, the Eldoret rally had absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation between the Kikuyus and Kalenjins. It was a deceitful game of building castles in the air through creating an imaginary political smokescreen of Kenya being led by Uhuru Kenyatta as the new President and William Ruto as his Deputy or vice versa.
Everyone present knew the game was simply a fictitious ploy to hoodwink the people of Kenya and especially the Kikuyus and Kalenjins to make them not face some fundamental problems confronting them. To being with the wounds caused by the post election violence between the two tribes are still fresh and far from showing any signs of healing. The animosity runs extremely deep with hundreds of thousands of Kikuyu IDPs languishing in ramshackle tents made of torn canvas and plastic waste.
These are people who, before the post election clashes, lived very comfortably in their well developed farms now being occupied by Kalenjins who took the land from the Kikuyus through the most barbaric methods which included mass murders, rape and arson. Kikuyus, on the other hand, organized themselves through the Mungiki gangster militia that hit back at the Kalenjins in more or less the same barbaric method. That is why Ruto and Uhuru are today wanted by Luis Moreno-Ocampo in The Hague.
When politicians meet in public rallies such as the one in Eldoret and talk about Kalenjin –Kikuyu reconciliation they know very well that a lot more needs to be done apart from Kenyatta and Ruto holding hands on a political platform in front of the Head of State. Unless the Kikuyus are given back their farms they will never forgive the Kalenjins. Yet the Kalenjins believe the land they took from the Kikuyus was and still is their own ancestral property.
The problem between the Kalenjins and Kikuyus could only be solved through a properly functioning TJRC which would lay all the cards on the table before suggesting a solution. Unfortunately the TJRC is itself almost dead because it started on a wrong footing with an unacceptable Bethwel Kiplagat as its chairman. Without a proper TJRC, animosity between communities can only be solved through pretentious games of dramatic tragicomedies such as the one witnessed in Eldoret last Friday.
At the Eldoret rally Ruto and all his Kalenjin MPs knew very well that they would never welcome back the Kikuyus in the farms now occupied by their people, despite the fact that Kibaki’s main goal of going to the rally was to get his Kikuyu people back to their farms. On the other hand, Kibaki also knew very well that he would never accept William Ruto back into his Cabinet when he is a wanted criminal both locally and internationally. Yet Kalenjins’ conditionality of having the Kikuyus back to their farms was to have Ruto back in the Cabinet. The mutual arm-twisting between the Kalenjins and the President complicated the deceitful game at the Eldoret rally.
Apart from the ridiculous game of public pretense to solidify the unity in KKK, that tribal organization is facing an extremely serious legal problem. It is, in fact, for all practical purposes, a prohibited illegal organization. The Constitution does not allow the existence of such a dogmatically intolerant entity to survive camouflaged as a political group. That is why its leaders are in a terrible panic. They are hurriedly trying to establish an acceptable political body to replace it.
As seasoned politicians the leaders of the intolerable KKK, Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka and William Ruto, have read the writing on the wall and realized that their tribal institution is facing a massive rejection by the people. The move to get a new political party established before next year’s presidential election is itself faced with a subterranean divisive threat. Whose political party will be acceptable to all the three leaders?
Ruto is planning to move to the little known United Democratic Movement (UDM) while Uhuru has just announced a move to register the so called PNU Alliance, which brings together the same people who are in the almost dead old PNU, which includes Kalonzo Musyoka’s ODM-K. The possible unity between UDM, ODM-K and PNU Alliance will probably be the new face of the KKK, which is bound to face the same misfortune of total rejection by the people of Kenya because it will not have changed anything in the tribal aspirations of the rejected KKK.
Whatever the three musketeers of the KKK do they have a major problem of establishing an acceptable political vehicle with which to confront Raila’s Odinga’s formidable ODM. Long before that vehicle has been established a number of major hurdles appear to be confronting the three tribal kingpins of the KKK. First they have to obey the law; and the law is now governed by the new Constitution which has very strict requirements to be followed by those who want to establish credible national political parties in this country.
According to Article 38 of the new Constitution every citizen is free to make political choices, which includes the right to form, or participate in forming, a political party; to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party; or to campaign for a political party or cause. If that was all that the new constitution said about political parties, in the Bill of Rights, then the KKK leaders would have had a field day in continuing to confuse Kenyans by forming all sorts of political parties just before elections in order to attract people along tribal lines.
Indeed that is how both PNU and ODM-K were formed. Whereas the former is a party of the Kikuyus, Embus and Merus of the Mount Kenya region, the later is certainly a party of the Kamba people. The drafters of the new Constitution led by Nzamba Kitonga knew very well that the right to form political parties had to be included in the Bill of Rights. But they also knew that that right could be abused by the political class in Kenya that has all the time survived through ownership of such tribal political parties.
To solve that serious problem that indeed went against the very spirit of proper Bills of right, the drafters of the new constitution came up with very wonderful protection of the people’s rights in Chapter Seven on Representation of the people. Nzamba Kitonga and his team saved the people of Kenya through Article 91 of the new Constitution which demands every political party in the new Kenya to have a national character as prescribed by an Act of Parliament.
The new Constitution demands political parties to have a democratically elected governing body; promote and uphold national unity; abide by the democratic principles of good governance, promote and practise democracy through regular, fair and free elections within the party; respect the right of all persons to participate in the political process, including minorities and marginalized groups. All these are qualities which lacked in almost all political parties in Kenya except the ODM, which has also got an uphill task of shedding off the stigma that it personally belongs to Raila Odinga.
The new Constitution demands all political parties to respect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and gender equality and equity; promote the rule of law; and subscribe to and observe the code of conduct for political parties. The new Constitution categorically prohibits political parties that are founded on a religious, linguistic, racial, ethnic, gender or regional basis or seek to engage in advocacy of hatred on any such basis. According to the new Constitution, therefore, the KKK itself would be a prohibited organization.
That is obviously one of the reasons for the rush to form political parties that appear to be national when in reality they will be well known tribal associations no different from the KKK. Apart from everything else Article 77(2) of the new Constitution states any appointed State officer shall not hold office in a political party. If KKK wins the next general lection and Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto become the country’s new President and Deputy President they will not be allowed to hold office in a political party. Even if, in the unlikely event, Uhuru and Ruto end up to be the President and Vice President of Kenya the tribal parties that will put them in power will be in fact without any nationally recognized leaders. A very terrible eventuality to imagine!
Monday, January 17, 2011
Raila’s chances to remain at the top
As the most popular politician in Kenya who stands the greatest chances to succeed Mwai Kibaki as the country’s next President, Raila Odinga, has very serious choices to make to remain at the top. First he has to prove to the people that he genuinely opposes corruption, which has been a major stumbling bloc to the country’s social, political and economic progress. Then he has also got to prove that he has nothing to do with tribalism, the one quality of leadership that has created more problems for Kenya than it has solved. And lastly he has to prove to the people that he truly believes in justice for all Kenyans and not just for the privileged class.
For Raila to prove that he sincerely opposes all forms of corruption he must stop all the junior ranking members of his political party, ODM, from attacking Dr. P.L.O Lumumba’s commendable efforts to fight corruption. The threat from ODM’s junior MPs to disband the KACC if it doesn’t expose the corrupt PNU leaders the way it has exposed the ODM ones is seen as originating from Raila himself who obviously would not like his party to be seen as the only corrupt one in the country.
But if Raila wants to continue getting the support of the common mwananchi, he must be seen to fight corruption in all its forms, even if it exits in his own party. Raila’s popularity will shoot up to the ceiling if he is seen to support Lumumba’s efforts by publicly warning all ODM top leaders to step down from all public offices , even the offices held in the party, the moment they are suspected by Lumumba to be corrupt.
If he takes such a stern measure against corrupt leaders in his own party and the Ministries administered by ODM politicians, then he will have the moral obligation to loudly ask the suspected PNU corrupt leaders to follow the ODM example. Right now he should be among the first Kenyan leaders to ask Charity Ngilu to step aside while Lumumba is subjecting her to his investigation.
Rather than appearing to oppose Lumumba’s efforts through uncalled for threats, he should be addressing the country both as the ODM leader and the Prime Minister by solemnly undertaking to never tolerate corruption in all its ways, shapes or forms now and in future. That way he will be telling Kenya the kind of President he will be when he takes over from Mwai Kibaki.
Rather than appearing to orchestrate the unnecessary shadow boxing against Lumumba’s good work the Prime Minister should be making sure all the people working under his leadership, whether in the ODM or the Government, exercise their duties in the spirit of the new Constitution’s Chapter Six on leadership and integrity. He should be calling up on all leaders in all political parties and indeed all public offices to demonstrate respect for the people and bring honour to the nation and dignity to the offices they hold just as the new Constitution calls for.
To remain on top of the ladder of popularity Raila has also got to emphatically condemn tribalism in the country, which is threatening to balkanize the nation into hostile ethnic cocoons seeking political powers through tribal unity rather than through ideological conviction. Kenyans know very well that whenever tribal nationalism triumphs, bloodshed follows along the pattern of ethnic clashes that followed the messed up 2007 elections. Whenever Kenyans agree to be manipulated by tribal chauvinists, they end up picking up pangas, bows and arrows in defence of people who have no interest of this country at heart.
The blood Kenyans poured for the sake of the same tribal chauvinists during the post election violence of 2008 has hardly dried up, yet calls are now being made to Kenyans all over again to unite in defence of more or less the same leaders who made people fight only a few years ago. The so called leaders have no shame what so ever when they openly talk of the KKK alliance that is expected to bring the Kikuyus , Kambas and Kalenjin people together to help the same chauvinistic leaders remain in power without going through a proper democratically organized free and fair election.
Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM-Kenya , William Ruto of ODM and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kanu are hoodwinking the Kikuyu, Kamba and Kalenjin people that they want to unite them to form the next Government whose main purpose is to fight against Prime Minister Raila Odinga. They don’t tell the people of Kenya what political platform will bring them and their followers together.
Kalonzo has made the Kamba people believe ODM-K is their political party, Uhuru Kenyatta leads Kanu without Kikuyu followers who belong to all sorts of political parties under the umbrella of PNU and Ruto is the Deputy Leader of ODM where he feels like a square peg in a round whole and from where he wants to pull out all the Kalenjins. Though he has not publicly announced his next political move, it is believed he intends to take all the Kalenjins into an amorphous organization called United Democratic Movement (UDM) which he dreams will be his political ladder into the future leadership of this country.
Kenyans know very little of UDM. They have not seen any election manifesto from it. They don’t know its policy on education, employment or land. All they know is that it will be the main party for the Kalenjin people whose leaders are united to promote two important themes: strong opposition of Raila Odinga’s leadership and the rejection of the new Constitution of Kenya.
Modern day Kenya is crying for a political party based on an ideology that clearly and unambiguously supports the constitution that has just been promulgated. The dream of Kenyans’ future leadership is based on principles found in their new constitution which they have just overwhelmingly endorsed. Raila Odinga’s chances of taking over the leadership of Kenya after that of Mwai Kibaki depend entirely on how strongly he opposes tribalism and supports the democratic principles enshrined in the new constitution.
It so happens that Raila has just announced his party ODM intends to hold countrywide grassroots elections. His continued popularity and the people’s continued acceptance of his party will depend entirely on how free and fair those grass-root elections will be. If his party seeks the assistance of the IIEC to organize truly free and fair elections, totally based on ideology and party manifesto whereby leaders are chosen on the basis of their ability to interpret these principles, rather than on the basis of which tribe or clan they belong to, the popularity of the party among all Kenyans is guaranteed. That single move by the Prime Minister is bound to prove to the wananchi that he indeed is the statesman they have always suspected him to be.
Last but not least Raila’s position as the future President of Kenya will be guaranteed by his unwavering stand for justice for all Kenyans. This he can do by unequivocally supporting Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s move to prosecute people he suspects of having masterminded the post election violence of 2007-08. Indeed, like most democrats, Raila is expected to champion the principle of everyone being innocent until proven guilty.
All the same, as the leader of ODM and the Prime Minister of Kenya, he should be among the first to demand that anyone who has been mentioned by Moreno-Ocampo should resign from all the party or public offices they hold. The individuals named by Moreno-Ocampo are going to be prosecuted in The Hague in their individual capacity and not as holders of either public or party offices.
If it is true, like Moreno-Ocampo would have us believe, they actually masterminded the bloodbath that followed the 2007 elections, then they acted against the well known principles of ODM and the Government. Parties and Governments do not plan mass murders, individuals do. And when they do so, they go against the well known party or Government principles. When a policeman is trigger happy and shoots to kill, he is committing a crime as an individual. If he is doing so as a result of obeying orders given to him by a superior officer then that superior officer is equally guilty individually.
As a political party ODM has no known principle of solving its problems through mass murders and arson. If there is an individual within the party who planned such criminal activities then he, as an individual, should answer charges against him at the ICC. Kenyans know that very serious crimes were committed in this country following the 2007 disputed presidential elections. Whether those crimes amount to crimes against humanity Moreno-Ocampo should be the one to prove before the ICC. He is convinced he has enough evidence and he is also backed by the majority of Kenyans and Raila Odinga should be one of those Kenyans if he really wants to be the next President of this great nation.
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For Raila to prove that he sincerely opposes all forms of corruption he must stop all the junior ranking members of his political party, ODM, from attacking Dr. P.L.O Lumumba’s commendable efforts to fight corruption. The threat from ODM’s junior MPs to disband the KACC if it doesn’t expose the corrupt PNU leaders the way it has exposed the ODM ones is seen as originating from Raila himself who obviously would not like his party to be seen as the only corrupt one in the country.
But if Raila wants to continue getting the support of the common mwananchi, he must be seen to fight corruption in all its forms, even if it exits in his own party. Raila’s popularity will shoot up to the ceiling if he is seen to support Lumumba’s efforts by publicly warning all ODM top leaders to step down from all public offices , even the offices held in the party, the moment they are suspected by Lumumba to be corrupt.
If he takes such a stern measure against corrupt leaders in his own party and the Ministries administered by ODM politicians, then he will have the moral obligation to loudly ask the suspected PNU corrupt leaders to follow the ODM example. Right now he should be among the first Kenyan leaders to ask Charity Ngilu to step aside while Lumumba is subjecting her to his investigation.
Rather than appearing to oppose Lumumba’s efforts through uncalled for threats, he should be addressing the country both as the ODM leader and the Prime Minister by solemnly undertaking to never tolerate corruption in all its ways, shapes or forms now and in future. That way he will be telling Kenya the kind of President he will be when he takes over from Mwai Kibaki.
Rather than appearing to orchestrate the unnecessary shadow boxing against Lumumba’s good work the Prime Minister should be making sure all the people working under his leadership, whether in the ODM or the Government, exercise their duties in the spirit of the new Constitution’s Chapter Six on leadership and integrity. He should be calling up on all leaders in all political parties and indeed all public offices to demonstrate respect for the people and bring honour to the nation and dignity to the offices they hold just as the new Constitution calls for.
To remain on top of the ladder of popularity Raila has also got to emphatically condemn tribalism in the country, which is threatening to balkanize the nation into hostile ethnic cocoons seeking political powers through tribal unity rather than through ideological conviction. Kenyans know very well that whenever tribal nationalism triumphs, bloodshed follows along the pattern of ethnic clashes that followed the messed up 2007 elections. Whenever Kenyans agree to be manipulated by tribal chauvinists, they end up picking up pangas, bows and arrows in defence of people who have no interest of this country at heart.
The blood Kenyans poured for the sake of the same tribal chauvinists during the post election violence of 2008 has hardly dried up, yet calls are now being made to Kenyans all over again to unite in defence of more or less the same leaders who made people fight only a few years ago. The so called leaders have no shame what so ever when they openly talk of the KKK alliance that is expected to bring the Kikuyus , Kambas and Kalenjin people together to help the same chauvinistic leaders remain in power without going through a proper democratically organized free and fair election.
Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM-Kenya , William Ruto of ODM and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kanu are hoodwinking the Kikuyu, Kamba and Kalenjin people that they want to unite them to form the next Government whose main purpose is to fight against Prime Minister Raila Odinga. They don’t tell the people of Kenya what political platform will bring them and their followers together.
Kalonzo has made the Kamba people believe ODM-K is their political party, Uhuru Kenyatta leads Kanu without Kikuyu followers who belong to all sorts of political parties under the umbrella of PNU and Ruto is the Deputy Leader of ODM where he feels like a square peg in a round whole and from where he wants to pull out all the Kalenjins. Though he has not publicly announced his next political move, it is believed he intends to take all the Kalenjins into an amorphous organization called United Democratic Movement (UDM) which he dreams will be his political ladder into the future leadership of this country.
Kenyans know very little of UDM. They have not seen any election manifesto from it. They don’t know its policy on education, employment or land. All they know is that it will be the main party for the Kalenjin people whose leaders are united to promote two important themes: strong opposition of Raila Odinga’s leadership and the rejection of the new Constitution of Kenya.
Modern day Kenya is crying for a political party based on an ideology that clearly and unambiguously supports the constitution that has just been promulgated. The dream of Kenyans’ future leadership is based on principles found in their new constitution which they have just overwhelmingly endorsed. Raila Odinga’s chances of taking over the leadership of Kenya after that of Mwai Kibaki depend entirely on how strongly he opposes tribalism and supports the democratic principles enshrined in the new constitution.
It so happens that Raila has just announced his party ODM intends to hold countrywide grassroots elections. His continued popularity and the people’s continued acceptance of his party will depend entirely on how free and fair those grass-root elections will be. If his party seeks the assistance of the IIEC to organize truly free and fair elections, totally based on ideology and party manifesto whereby leaders are chosen on the basis of their ability to interpret these principles, rather than on the basis of which tribe or clan they belong to, the popularity of the party among all Kenyans is guaranteed. That single move by the Prime Minister is bound to prove to the wananchi that he indeed is the statesman they have always suspected him to be.
Last but not least Raila’s position as the future President of Kenya will be guaranteed by his unwavering stand for justice for all Kenyans. This he can do by unequivocally supporting Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s move to prosecute people he suspects of having masterminded the post election violence of 2007-08. Indeed, like most democrats, Raila is expected to champion the principle of everyone being innocent until proven guilty.
All the same, as the leader of ODM and the Prime Minister of Kenya, he should be among the first to demand that anyone who has been mentioned by Moreno-Ocampo should resign from all the party or public offices they hold. The individuals named by Moreno-Ocampo are going to be prosecuted in The Hague in their individual capacity and not as holders of either public or party offices.
If it is true, like Moreno-Ocampo would have us believe, they actually masterminded the bloodbath that followed the 2007 elections, then they acted against the well known principles of ODM and the Government. Parties and Governments do not plan mass murders, individuals do. And when they do so, they go against the well known party or Government principles. When a policeman is trigger happy and shoots to kill, he is committing a crime as an individual. If he is doing so as a result of obeying orders given to him by a superior officer then that superior officer is equally guilty individually.
As a political party ODM has no known principle of solving its problems through mass murders and arson. If there is an individual within the party who planned such criminal activities then he, as an individual, should answer charges against him at the ICC. Kenyans know that very serious crimes were committed in this country following the 2007 disputed presidential elections. Whether those crimes amount to crimes against humanity Moreno-Ocampo should be the one to prove before the ICC. He is convinced he has enough evidence and he is also backed by the majority of Kenyans and Raila Odinga should be one of those Kenyans if he really wants to be the next President of this great nation.
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