The article below was carried as an opinion in the DN 21st Sept 2011... but here is the unedited text
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I have a lot of respect for honourable members, and much more if they hold cabinet positions. But i have absolutely no respect for anyone who wants to do themselves a favour by subverting the collective will of all Kenyans. Indeed, this is the reason why we negotiated this constitution. We did not want a few people (or one person if you remember Presidents Kenyatta and Moi), to make decisions for us, decide what is good for Kenya, and go ahead to do it because they have the power and instruments of government.
Let all Kenyans know that the proposed change of date is symbolic, it is indeed the first adulteration of the constitution. If it works, then it will be possible to adulterate everything in the constitution. And the cabinet is very clever, they are just testing the waters. If they and parliament win, wait for a flood of demagoguery. The next thing you will hear is that the threshold for a presidential candidate s too high and what we need is a simple majority vote. We must fight it by all means.
The change of date is being tied to the resolution of the crisis that is wont to happen is article 81 b is not realised. The women sector has been hoodwinked to support this amendment. Please be warned my sisters, do not take a bite at the carrot. It is laced with a poison so lethal it can dismember this society. Remember the story of the ogre that transformed itself to a handsome graceful dancer and won the confidence of the beautiful girl and even offered to marry her? He and his friends were going to feast on her flesh that night. Were it not for the deux ex machina, the small bird that told he to run for the hills and the frog that swallowed her as the ogres came carrying wood, she was on her way to the roast. I am that bird, and i am speaking to you.
If you listen to Hon Mutula, you will still be wondering what the difference is between implementation and amendment, and which of the two is the mandate of the CIC. A friend of mine said in a meeting that Mutula is treating the CIC as if it were a small department he established by gazette notice. Bw Waziri, kindly be advised that the CIC is a constitutional body, and anything that happens to the constitution is their business. In the event that they are not consulted or informed of the actions of any institution (as long as that action relates to the constitution), and then they develop a consultation mechanism for citizen’s participation, such actions are part of the impunity we are so keen to abandon.
The spirit of the constitution is one of national dialogue and we do not ever again want to go back to the times when our leaders are talking down on us. It is because of the arrogance of leaders that we have fought, that people have dedicated themselves to the liberation of this country. We are not there yet, and even some ideologues and architects of repression are posing as reformers, but we have started the journey.
That having been said, let us turn to the issue of the election date. It is not ambiguous. It is now becoming important because the two principals are using cabinet to legitimise their continued stay in the arbitrary marriage called a coalition government. It is very convenient for them. And therefore the delay in establishing the IEBC. They know, as we do, that no Kenyan wants to go to elections without a well functioning body because of our experience in 2007. And they are exploiting our fears by delaying its establishment. That it will not be ready to carry out elections on 14th of august 2012 is utter nonsense. We know that if a government wants something to work, they will put everything in it, and we have the capacity to make IEBC work very well. The problem is the two principals do not want an election that early, period.
And so our focus should go to Dr A Ekuru and his team. When they are doing the interviews, the key question they need to ask is: how will you ensure that the elections in August 2012 are properly done? A candidate who mentions the “cabinet proposal on election date” should automatically be disqualified. He or she belongs to the impunious system and is an hindrance to reforms.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
An Amendment Now will Adulterate the Constitution
Committed to the preservation of any positive gains of the human race especially those that relate to the socio-political arena and those that people have fought for.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
A talk to the IFP alumni on 10 9 2011
The Role of Citizens in the Implementation of the Constitution
Speaking to intellectuals, the members of the middle class, is a challenging task. This is because there is evidence that our middle class is perhaps one of the most compromised and detached community in Kenya. Their limbo arises out of the fact that they are people in waiting for appointments to government and other senior positions or are already settled in life and a system of ideas.
But since we got the new constitution, the role of the middle class has become even more apparent than it was when Dr Willy Mutunga, wrote a book that showed the middle class as providing leadership in the reform agenda in Kenya – where he refered to the Civil Society and the Clergy as the epitome of this class.
I will concentrate on two areas: how we came about this constitution and the lessons on the implementation process.
The renegotiation of a new Kenya can be summed up in four broad historical phases:
1. When after independence the government of President Kenyatta changed the constitution to kill ‘self-governance” by the people, by mutilating the provisions to provide for a powerful presidency and the de-facto one party state, many of the reformers in the political field (led by Odinga Oginga) and those in the academia started through parliamentary protests, theatre and nationalist education to refocus the nation on the need for a more inclusive leadership
2. After his ascension to power and the coup that followed, President Moi outlawed multi-party politics and the country was treated to the “KANU ni baba na mama” sloganeering, the citizens organised themselves into cells to discuss how to open the democratic space. Mwakenya was one such outcome of citizens’ mobilisation. In 1985, Rev Timothy Njoya gave the first sermon calling on the need to renegotiate the governorship of Kenya.
3. The late 80’s and early 90’s saw citizens organised around Mageuzi and FORD to pursue liberation of this country. The repeal of section 2A in 1991 was a direct fruit of citizen activism. Then there was the realisation that plurality in politics without changing the rules of engagement was useless as the incumbent could rig themselves to perpetually stay in power. The civil society under the leadership of the KHRC developed a model constitution for Kenya in 1994. The “No Reforms no Elections” movement in 1997 was compromised by the IPPG where leaders sought to benefit themselves as opposed to the whole country
4. The formation of the CRC in 1999 and subsequently the CKRC (that combined both the CRC and the Ufungamano Initiative as Prof Ghai had demanded) in 2000 was the key step in started a national dialogue in Kenya. The key betrayal of the Bomas conference was realised on 16th March 2004 when the AG refused to take the adopted report of the conference for further processing in Parliament. After the acrimony of leadership that prevailed then, the rejection of the Wako draft in Nov 2005 and consequently what happened in 2007/8 was to a large extent inevitable. The Post Election Violence provided us with an opportunity to agree to renegotiate our basic instrument of governance and thus we got a new constitution
After the constitution was promulgated, the key challenge for the nation has been how to implement it. The constitution provides for a location of sovereignty on the people(Preamble and Art 1), has principles and values upon which the new kenya shall be built (Art 10), provides for a mechanism on how it can be interpreted (art 159), has progressive provisions on socio-economic rights (article 43), provides for strengthening of the various arms of government to make them independent and able to check one another and identifies access to justice (Art 22 and Art 48) as key to citizenry enjoying rights and undertaking responsibilities.
The constitution letter and spirit faces many challenges of implementation. Some of the key lessons we learn from other places include:
• The need to strengthen institutions
• we should ensure a independent and impassionate electoral management body
• The judiciary should be independent.
• we should do everything to avoid interference by politicians
• civic education should to be continuous and be issue based
• as a country we need to develop and sustain a consistent national morality (drawn from the values) and use it to measure all aspects of governance
• make all efforts to ensure that the people take ownership of the constitution
Any engagement therefore by citizens, in my view, should be guided by these seven factors.
I must add a note on civic education.
The constitution envisages that the citizens will be expected to “respect, uphold and defend” the constitution (Art 3). For the citizen to be able to do this, all people must be empowered not just with the knowledge on the constitution, but on the actions that are both possible and desirable for them to effectively play this role. Developing a programme that tells people about the constitution is definitely irresponsible at this time and it is not only too little, but also too uninformed by current thinking on the pedagogy of community education.
Thank you.
10 09 2011
Speaking to intellectuals, the members of the middle class, is a challenging task. This is because there is evidence that our middle class is perhaps one of the most compromised and detached community in Kenya. Their limbo arises out of the fact that they are people in waiting for appointments to government and other senior positions or are already settled in life and a system of ideas.
But since we got the new constitution, the role of the middle class has become even more apparent than it was when Dr Willy Mutunga, wrote a book that showed the middle class as providing leadership in the reform agenda in Kenya – where he refered to the Civil Society and the Clergy as the epitome of this class.
I will concentrate on two areas: how we came about this constitution and the lessons on the implementation process.
The renegotiation of a new Kenya can be summed up in four broad historical phases:
1. When after independence the government of President Kenyatta changed the constitution to kill ‘self-governance” by the people, by mutilating the provisions to provide for a powerful presidency and the de-facto one party state, many of the reformers in the political field (led by Odinga Oginga) and those in the academia started through parliamentary protests, theatre and nationalist education to refocus the nation on the need for a more inclusive leadership
2. After his ascension to power and the coup that followed, President Moi outlawed multi-party politics and the country was treated to the “KANU ni baba na mama” sloganeering, the citizens organised themselves into cells to discuss how to open the democratic space. Mwakenya was one such outcome of citizens’ mobilisation. In 1985, Rev Timothy Njoya gave the first sermon calling on the need to renegotiate the governorship of Kenya.
3. The late 80’s and early 90’s saw citizens organised around Mageuzi and FORD to pursue liberation of this country. The repeal of section 2A in 1991 was a direct fruit of citizen activism. Then there was the realisation that plurality in politics without changing the rules of engagement was useless as the incumbent could rig themselves to perpetually stay in power. The civil society under the leadership of the KHRC developed a model constitution for Kenya in 1994. The “No Reforms no Elections” movement in 1997 was compromised by the IPPG where leaders sought to benefit themselves as opposed to the whole country
4. The formation of the CRC in 1999 and subsequently the CKRC (that combined both the CRC and the Ufungamano Initiative as Prof Ghai had demanded) in 2000 was the key step in started a national dialogue in Kenya. The key betrayal of the Bomas conference was realised on 16th March 2004 when the AG refused to take the adopted report of the conference for further processing in Parliament. After the acrimony of leadership that prevailed then, the rejection of the Wako draft in Nov 2005 and consequently what happened in 2007/8 was to a large extent inevitable. The Post Election Violence provided us with an opportunity to agree to renegotiate our basic instrument of governance and thus we got a new constitution
After the constitution was promulgated, the key challenge for the nation has been how to implement it. The constitution provides for a location of sovereignty on the people(Preamble and Art 1), has principles and values upon which the new kenya shall be built (Art 10), provides for a mechanism on how it can be interpreted (art 159), has progressive provisions on socio-economic rights (article 43), provides for strengthening of the various arms of government to make them independent and able to check one another and identifies access to justice (Art 22 and Art 48) as key to citizenry enjoying rights and undertaking responsibilities.
The constitution letter and spirit faces many challenges of implementation. Some of the key lessons we learn from other places include:
• The need to strengthen institutions
• we should ensure a independent and impassionate electoral management body
• The judiciary should be independent.
• we should do everything to avoid interference by politicians
• civic education should to be continuous and be issue based
• as a country we need to develop and sustain a consistent national morality (drawn from the values) and use it to measure all aspects of governance
• make all efforts to ensure that the people take ownership of the constitution
Any engagement therefore by citizens, in my view, should be guided by these seven factors.
I must add a note on civic education.
The constitution envisages that the citizens will be expected to “respect, uphold and defend” the constitution (Art 3). For the citizen to be able to do this, all people must be empowered not just with the knowledge on the constitution, but on the actions that are both possible and desirable for them to effectively play this role. Developing a programme that tells people about the constitution is definitely irresponsible at this time and it is not only too little, but also too uninformed by current thinking on the pedagogy of community education.
Thank you.
10 09 2011
Committed to the preservation of any positive gains of the human race especially those that relate to the socio-political arena and those that people have fought for.
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