Campaigns in Kenya for the referendum on a new constitution enter the final week, with President Mwai Kibaki leading a spirited effort for the adoption of the draft, while a number of influential politicians and church leaders are waging a concerted effort to defeat it.
The attainment of a new constitution was part of the accord that set up Kenya's grand coalition government, formed after the bloody aftermath of the contested election that saw President Kibaki returned to office under controversial circumstances in December 2007.
Nearly 1,500 people were killed and almost half a million displaced, and Kenyan politicians undertook to enact a new constitution to avoid a repeat of such violence.
But what was earlier considered a smooth ride to adopt the new draft is turning out to be a serious contest between the two sides.
President Kibaki on Wednesday took the campaigns to Western Kenya after a series of rallies in the populous central province that is his political bedrock, but the last two days were marked by a sharp exchange of words between Kibaki and his predecessor Daniel Arap Moi, who is feverishly campaigning for the rejection of the draft.
The usually diplomatic Kibaki told former president Moi that it was shameful for him to hop around the country campaigning against the draft, especially after presiding over Kenya for twenty-four years and failing to deliver a new constitution.
Moi fired back that Kibaki himself had promised a new constitution within 100 days after coming to office in 2002, but hadn't delivered.
The campaigns have brought forth the phenomenon of a government sometimes appearing to campaign against itself, with influential Rift Valley politician and higher education minister William Ruto leading the campaign against the draft, backed by a good number of church leaders and MPs from the area that has been a political flashpoint in past elections.
Dr Tom Namwamba, the coordinator of the 'no' campaigns, says the draft is a recipe for future chaos if passed.
With energetic campaigner Prime Minister Raila Odinga out of the limelight recovering from a medical condition, President Kibaki and his deputy Kalonzo Musyoka have unleashed the entire government machinery - including a controversial decision to allow senior civil servants to vote - in an effort to achieve a decisive win.
The vote on August 4 will prove if they have been successful.
Listen to a story on the Kenyan constitution vote here.
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Merely campaigning against the draft because we have personal grudge with particular fellows demeans the very essence of democratic space. A constitution is a life-long document meant to serve this, and even future generations and whose present embodiment should be beyond reproach nor individual interests. A senior fellow who had the opportunity at all stages to midwife and babysit this constitution and was appreciated well all over the country for unlocking a stalemate at Naivasha, expecting a "friend-turn-foe" to derogate, now turns around against his own newborn, mauling him like a hound. Surely, we need to transcend above partisan and personal interests to succeed as a nation. Why should we believe in sorting out "contentious issues in Luscious hotels using taxpayers money in a record "3 months" while we pay MPs chunks of money to sit in parliament to deliberate on such issues/faults as appears in the draft. Does it mean that after the refurundum the MPs will recoil and never have any more constituion-anactments/amendments to decipher. We should learn to rise above our ethnic cocoons and yearn for a Kenya where an "O" can be a senator in Wajir, "Moha" an MP in Kisii, "Kip" a governor in Migori, "Mwa" an MP in Kericho,etc,etc: when ethnic propensities shall not propel our grandchildren's names and nemesis, but by a coded national emblem. How we cry for this generation untainted by "where are you from???". ((Pls Do Not Show Identity))