Nairobi — Kenyan blogger Daudi Were reflects on events in Parliament in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Silver linings: Kenya Election 2007
Every cloud has a silver lining, the saying goes. Tuesday afternoon the dark cloud of an illegitimate presidency in Kenya revealed its silver lining. Democracy hit back hard as Kenya’s 10th parliament convened for the first time. As a proud Kenyan patriot I was pleased that there were no punches thrown in parliament, no unseeingly scenes of honourable members doing what some call pulling a South Korea.
It was all very civilised, everybody addressing each other as honourable member this, honourable member that. As a political scientist it was the most drama I have watched in a long time, so many issues to discuss. Rather than deliver a blow by blow account let me highlight a couple of issues I felt were important.
The situation we have in Kenya as it stands is that we have a president who does not have control of parliament. This would not be a big problem if we had a presidential style of government as in the United States where the president and congress regularly come from different parties and those institutions are designed to work separately. However, what we have in Kenya is a ridiculous deformed hybrid of a presidential and parliamentary style of government, where we have an executive president, who is also a member of the legislature and has the right to vote in the legislature and is dependant on it for his agenda to go through, yet sits separate from other members of parliament and is treated as a respected outsider from most proceedings, does not have to justify his actions to parliament and can largely ignore it or bend it to his will as a rubber stamp.
This deformed hybrid of government worked perfectly (from a presidential point of view) up to now as the president has always had control of parliament through his political party. In 2008 we have a situation where the strongest political force in the country, ODM, is not only completely opposed to the president but also considers him illegitimate.
This is not news, ever since Kibaki claimed the presidency he knew that he had fewer members of parliament that those opposed to him. What has been extraordinary to observe in the days since Kibaki rushed to his swearing in ceremony, is that Kibaki has acted like he can simply ignore ODM. Isolated in State House he has acted like he does not have to deal with ODM.
Well, during the first session of parliament on Tuesday reality hit. For the first time since the election Kibaki came face to face with a group of people who not only think he is illegitimate and stole the election, but also have real power to set up an alternative political power structure. This was shown when ODM managed to get their candidate for Speaker of Parliament, Kenneth Marende, elected over Kibaki’s choice, the former incumbent, Francis Ole Kaparo.
ODM controlling parliament sets up some very interesting and indeed ridiculous scenarios. Kibaki gets to appoint a cabinet and that cabinet has to work through parliament. Yet the majority in parliament is completely opposed to Kibaki’s policies and will do whatever it can to wreck them. Kibaki, if he was thinking straight, could have overcome this by appointing ODM MPs to key cabinet positions. Instead he chose to ignore ODM all together in a move that made no political sense. ODM due to their strength in numbers will control all parliamentary committees. In another ridiculous scenario, some powerful parliamentary committees have a majority of seats reserved for the opposition in an attempt to prevent the largest political party in parliament from dominating all proceedings.
Of course the largest political party in parliament is usually the president’s party. This time however ODM is both the largest political party in parliament AND at the same time is the opposition and therefore, now have the opportunity to completely dominate all aspects of parliament’s proceedings and undermine Kibaki’s agenda. They do not have the two thirds majority required for a vote of no confidence, however, they can, for example, vote down the budget. Then what would Kibaki do? Or they can introduce a private members bill which states that anybody appointed a minister immediately looses 90% of his parliamentary salary. This is not as far fetched as you think. After all today we saw attempts by ODM to have the oath MPs have to take as they are sworn in as unconstitutional! We shall see how this plays out. If you didn’t know why we need a new constitution before then hopefully this political mess has opened your eyes to why we do.
Another aspect of this political situation in the country is that every political move, even when it seems spontaneous and obvious, is calculated. For example, take ODM’s strategy of asking the Speaker to rule the oath MPs have to take during their swearing in as unconstitutional as the MPs have to swear allegiance to the presidency as well as the country and the constitution. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that this Point of Order had no chance of succeeding for a whole variety of reasons and ODM must have known that. So why push it? Perhaps because it gives the new ODM-backed Speaker of the House the opportunity to display his impartiality by ruling against ODM in his first ruling?
What I have found completely irritating in the proceedings of today and the past two weeks is Kibaki’s camp continual insistence that, the law or tradition even, be respected at all times. This from a team that continuously broke “little” laws when they felt those laws did not matter much. One example, the law of Kenya states that there shall be no campaigning the day before an election. Basically this law is designed to allow the electorate to vote in peace. It is not the most significant law but it is important. The evening before the country was due to vote in the Constitutional Referendum i.e. well within the final 24 hours, Kibaki went on TV to give an address carried live by the national broadcaster urging Kenyans to vote for his new proposed constitution. A clear and blatant breaking of the law by the person whose team is now shouting obey the law. When you hear ministers who were part of a government that has repeated tried to muzzle the press by amongst other things sending in paramilitary terror squads and burning presses, continuously insist that everyone else must obey the law or take matters to court you can’t help but snort in disgust.
These are the same clowns who were using state resources against the law, mainly vehicles and helicopters, in the just concluded campaigns who are now shouting that the law must be obeyed. We used to be told a story as children warning against adopting cute little lion cubs. The moral of the story; little lions become big lions and big lions kill. If you were wondering what the story teller was talking about well here is a 21st century adaptation; people who break little laws, will have no problems breaking big laws. Those who ignore a “small” law banning campaigning in the last 24 hours today, steal a “big” election tomorrow.
During the debate in parliament today speaker after speaker on Kibaki’s side urged that tradition be respected. Yet this is the same Kibaki who completely ignored tradition and unilaterally appointed Electoral Commission of Kenya commissioners just two months ago without consulting the opposition ignoring a tradition which was established during the reform talks of 1997 and from which Kibaki directly benefited as a member of the then opposition.
This habit of breaking the law when it suits them and ignoring traditions when it suits them means that there is no way ODM will trust anything Kibaki’s administration will say. This would not matter if Kibaki controlled parliament. Then he could just continue with his policy to ignore ODM. But since he does not and since ODM can claim the mandate of the people, as the have more MPs, it matters a lot.
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Many of us who worked tirelessly in the past year urging people to vote ensuring them that their vote matters, that their vote is their voice and that all votes are equal have been completely deflated in the past two weeks. What do you tell someone who voted for the first time and then sees his vote disregarded in blatant rigging?
I have been expecting many of the younger voters to come and express their anger at me for getting their hopes up that their vote was as powerful as anyone else’s vote. Instead what I have seen is very encouraging; people are engaged in the political process as never before. For example, earlier on Tuesday a group of youth were busy calculating how many votes you need to be elected Speaker of parliament. At petrol stations you hear debates about whether Nominated MPs are nominated before or after the speaker is elected, people come up to me and ask if there is anything that can prevent Kibaki from stealing all the Nominated MP positions for his own party in defiance of tradition which states the nominated positions are given out in proportion to the number of seats won, and the most requested document request I receive by email these days is for the Constitution.
Tuesday’s parliamentary proceedings were broadcast live on TV and the whole country was watching and taking note. When Marende was elected speaker we could hear shouts of celebration from Kibera and Kawangware. This engagement is not exclusive to the middle class. It looks like stealing an election is a fantastic way to get the public engaged in civic education. Now that is a massive silver lining!
(It is now 01.00 and Members of Parliament are still being sworn in? Why the heck don’t these guys start their business day at 09.00 like the rest of the professional world (or at 6am like many of their constituents do)? Don’t worry, Kibaki snuck out a while ago and is probably tucked into bed enjoying a long night's sleep after a hard 5 hour working day.
