Kibaki’s withdrawal betrays KKK

Kibaki’s withdrawal of the four names he had nominated for top constitutional offices can be viewed in at least four different ways. First it could be a futile attempt to save face after he inadvertently angered many local and international personalities and legal institutions; secondly it could be a genuine attempt to correct a terrible mistake following a horrible advice; thirdly it could be a tactful measure to buy more time to perfect plans to empower the President to unilaterally nominate candidates for important constitutional positions without the needed consultation with the Prime Minister. Fourthly the names could have been withdrawn after a clever plan to dupe the Prime Minister to accept the names of well known stooges of PNU, who would have helped to stage-manage local trials of the Ocampo Six, failed to materialize.

Of all the above possible reasons for Kibaki’s withdrawal of his nominations it is the last one which hits the KKK hardest. Their scheme to get a team of yes-men in important judicial positions before establishing a local tribunal to ostensibly try the Ocampo Six appear to have miserably flopped. By and large Kibaki’s withdrawal of the four names seems to betray the KKK alliance.

If Kibaki withdrew the names to genuinely correct a mistake he made following bad advice given to him then a major reshuffle should be expected soon among the President’s men. All those who misled the President will probably be shown the door in a quiet reshuffle that the public will be told nothing about.
That, however, is not likely to happen if the President made his withdrawal in the Dunkirk style.

If Kibaki made the about turn act simply to save face then he has stepped on very sensitive toes of very close friends who wanted to use him to achieve their lifelong ambition to both succeed him at State House and get away with the crime of mass murders they committed after the 2007 bloody elections. They will consider Kibaki’s withdrawal of judicial names as an act of betrayal for which they will probably never forgive him.

But the chances are that the withdrawal of the said names was part of a very well planned alternative route to follow when the first option failed. Needless to say the first option was to get a team of yes-men in important judicial positions before establishing a local tribunal to ostensibly try the Ocampo Six. Since that plan has aborted miserably then plan B must have been to tactfully withdraw the nominations.

The nominations of Appeal Judge Alnashir Visram as the next Chief Justice; Professor Githu Muigai as the next Attorney General; Kioko Kilukumi as the next Director of Public Prosecutions and William Kirwa as the candidate for country’s first Controller of Budget was probably a very well calculated exercise to test the waters and see whether or not Kibaki would get away with the unilateral recommendations.

It so happens that the Prime Minister was alert to the scheme and did not fall into the trap. With the hindsight of the debates and confrontations that surrounded the nominations there can be no doubt that Raila was indeed casually consulted before the final announcements were made when he was out of the country. The final list of the nominees had names of some people he had never heard of before. If he had kept quiet and accepted Kibaki’s nominations the trend would have continued. More appointments would have been made behind his back.

The new Constitution establishes ten commissions and two important independent offices. The commissions are the Kenya National Human Rights and Equality Commission; the National Land Commission; the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission; the Parliamentary Service Commission; the Judicial Service Commission; the Commission on Revenue Allocation; the Public Service Commission; the Salaries and Remuneration Commission; the Teachers Service Commission; and the National Police Service Commission. The independent offices are those of the Auditor-General; and the Controller of Budget.

That list contains a number of important jobs that still needs to be filled by the President after consulting the Prime Minister. If his experiment worked Kibaki would have filled all the important commissions and offices by casually consulting the Prime Minister. It is strange, for example, that he wants the offices of the Controller of Budget and that of the Director of Public Prosecutions to be filled through advertisements when that of the Attorney General, according to him, should be filled by consultations with the Prime Minister. The President is so annoyed with Amos Wako that he wants the AG out of office as soon as possible. The tough stand taken by the PM to have all jobs advertised has the backing of the people who now believe in transparency and accountability.

In more that one way Mwai Kibaki’s change of mind betrays the wishes of the KKK to have a local tribunal established as soon as possible to avoid going to The Hague. Though extremely bitter because of the President’s about turn act the KKK know the law is against them. Deep inside their hearts they are bitterly opposed to the new Constitution which is destroying their despotic powers faster than they imagined. It must now be extremely shocking to discover that the unilateral use of Executive powers as manipulated by the likes of Muthaura to implement unpopular policies is a thing of the past.

Now the only way they can stage a coup against the raising political star of the Prime Minister is through the use of their parliamentary numerical superiority through attempts to dominate in the important Parliamentary Select Committees. Their attempt to get rid of Ababu Namwamba as the Chairman of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee quickly backfired when the ODM wrote to Speaker Marende seeking to replace Isaac Ruto and Sophia Abdi from the same committee. Because of the important roles the select committees in Parliament will be playing in interviewing nominees to important state positions, membership to these committees will be very crucial. Already there are signs of bitter party confrontations about the membership to these committees.

From the point of view of KKK’s growing influence in Parliament based of the large bloc they control, they can still do a lot of damage in rejecting people they don’t want in public offices. Technically, however, the ODM is officially the majority party in Parliament and it could still make sure that those who sit in the most important committees are only the loyal members of the party.

From now on a lot of arguments between political parties will be based on not only what is in the new Constitution but also what is in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly. Right now Standing Order number 159 which deals with the nomination of members of select committees will be constantly quoted in the current debate between ODM and PNU/KKK.

That Standing Order says unless otherwise provided by any written law or these Standing Orders, the House Business Committee shall, in consultation with parliamentary parties, nominate, for approval by the House, Members who shall serve on any select committee. Which means political parties will play a very important role in determining who will serve in these select committees.

All the same the political parties will also have to follow certain criteria in nominating the members to the select committees. According to Standing Order number 160 the nominations must reflect quite a number of things including the ethnic diversity. The Standing Order says in nominating Members to serve on any select committee, the House Business Committee shall ensure that the membership of each committee reflects the relative majorities of the seats held by each of the parliamentary parties in the National Assembly and Kenya’s ethnic, geographical, cultural, political, social and economic diversity; and shall give consideration to the need for gender balance.

Because the KKK lost face when Kibaki withdrew his nominations they now seem to have changed their tactics and taken the war against the Prime Minister to the select committees. The selection of membership to the select committees will from now on be based on party loyalty. The KKK will want to dominate the committees by joining hands with the rebel ODM members. As a party, the ODM itself will probably only select known loyal members to serve in the committees.

The struggle to dominate parliamentary committees means the war between ODM and PNU/KKK is far from over. Very soon the country will be taken through yet another drama of brinkmanship and grandstanding which will be done both in Parliament and in public political meetings. The scenario is not likely to change until the next general elections.