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Kenya: Citizens Could Vote for New Constitution
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
30 April 2008
Posted to the web 30 April 2008
Abiya Ochola, Beauttah Omanga, Evelyne Ogutu, Susan Anyangu, and Morton Saulo
Nairobi
Kenyans could vote at another referendum if a new roadmap unveiled on Tuesday gives the country a new constitution within the year.
But there were concerns that voting at another plebiscite only months after a disputed presidential election, which almost ripped the country apart, could further polarise the country.
Pessimists argued that campaigns for or against the document could plunge the country into another round of high stakes political games and brinksmanship. This was witnessed in 2005 at a referendum on the draft constitution, which the Government side lost.
This view appeared grounded in the argument that the Grand Coalition Government, cobbled together to haul the country out of the crippling post-General Election violence, may have not gained a strong foothold in just a year.
On Tuesday, the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee gave the strongest hint yet that the country could have a new constitution in a year and told Kenyans to brace for another referendum battle.
Negotiators at the Serena mediation talks said the referendum was mandatory on a day they unveiled a five-phase roadmap towards a new constitutional dispensation.
The mediators mandated Constitutional Affairs minister, Ms Martha Karua, to within two weeks come up with a draft constitutional referendum Bill, which will form the basis for a new constitution process. This will serve as the first phase of the process.
The urgency of the matter was underlined when the negotiators agreed that the Karua draft be the subject of discussion when the talks resume on May 14.
The constitutional referendum Bill, once passed, will establish the powers of the stakeholders and provide a legal framework for the review process.
Beat one-year deadline
Present at the session of the Serena talks were Cabinet ministers, Mr James Orengo, Ms Karua, Prof Sam Ongeri, Mr Mutula Kilonzo, Mr William Ruto and Mr Moses Wetangula. Dr Sally Kosgey, the Higher Education minister and a member of the team, did not attend.
Speaking to journalists, Mutula said the committee would endeavour to come up with a draft that will midwife a new constitution agreeable to all Kenyans.
"Kenyans have craved for a new constitution for over two decades and we have the opportunity to come with a roadmap," said Mutula.
Deputy PM, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, chaired the talks. The talks co-chair, Mr Oluyemi Adeniji, is in Ethiopia where sources said he was expected to brief the African Union on the progress of the mediation. He will be back today.
"We have resolved that the Constitutional Affairs minister starts to work on the draft and table it before the panel. This will guide be a roadmap towards a new constitutional dispensation," Kilonzo, a member of the talks, told journalists.
He said the new push is meant to beat the one-year deadline set by the committee to come up with comprehensive constitutional review under Agenda Four.
In the run up to last year's poll, President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga promised to deliver a new constitution within the first year if they won.
But legal experts, constitutional lawyers and politicians cautioned that even though there was need to meet the one-year deadline the top leadership has given itself, care must be taken to ensure the initiative does not drag the nation into more divisions and politics of retrogression.
Former Kabete MP, Mr Paul Muite, and former Nominated MP, Ms Njoki Ndung'u, both lawyers, said what the country needed are minimum reforms to serve as an "escape valve" should the Grand Coalition Government collapse.
"We do not know for how long this Grand Coalition Government will last. That is why we need minimum reforms to look into the electoral laws," Muite, a former chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional Review, told The Standard last night.
"Some minimum reforms should be enacted within the current Constitution before embarking on the long journey towards a new document," he said.
The reforms, Muite said, should inject professionalism in the body governing elections - Electoral Commission of Kenya- and focus on judicial reforms.
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Former Secretary of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, Dr Patrick Lumumba, welcomed the move, but was of the view that interest groups only needed to tie up the loose ends that previously denied the country a new constitution.
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Kenya has problems because of the introduction of a third party in the works of the agreement, if the witchdoctor said that an individual would pass between two unnoticed and catch the prize, then the kenaytta should be careful about the Moi that he has, ...the witchdoctor claims he was not paid everything so his predictions will not come to pass, but still, kenyatta has to be on the lookout
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