By Dominic Odipo

I understand that the official draft of the proposed new constitution of the Republic of Kenya will be published on Tuesday. Good. Let it be published so that we all can peruse, interrogate and, if necessary, tear it into pieces.

The main point of departure is that we cannot afford to go wrong on this constitution. It is, literally, a matter of life and death for all of us.

If we go wrong, disaster looms ahead, terrible disaster.

The next point is that we need to have this new constitution in place before the beginning of the next electoral cycle.

But when does the next electoral cycle begin? It begins when the new constitution is enacted or about two years before the next general and Presidential elections scheduled for 2012, whichever occurs earlier.

This means that if we do not have the proposed constitution in place before the end of next year, we can as well forget about it until about 2014.

I also understand that the draft constitution will recommend the creation of two effective centres of power; the presidency and the Prime Minister’s office.

That it will be imprisoned by the Grand Coalition agreement of February 2008.

It will not come out unequivocally in support of either the Presidential or the parliamentary system of government.

It will try to hew a middle path in order to appease the party political interests of PNU and ODM.

This article is not part of the public debate on the draft constitution.

It cannot be, because that debate does not begin until the draft has been published. So we are covered.

But if the draft elects to distribute the ultimate state power between two individuals representing different and opposing political interests, then we are heading for a major political catastrophe as surely as night follows day in these parts of the world.

Suppose, for the purposes of this non-debate, that the draft stipulates that there shall be a President who will also be the commander-in-chief of all our armed forces and a Prime Minister who will run the rest of the government, where will that leave us?

Let us start by posing just a few questions.

Will there be a minister of Defence in that Government?

Will there be a minister for Internal Security or Home Affairs who will be in charge of all our police services?

If there will be, who will appoint these ministers and to whom will they report?

Will they report to the President who will be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces or to the Prime Minister who will be the head of Cabinet and thus of all other Cabinet ministers?

What will happen if the country is faced with a "Migingo situation" when the Prime Minister wants to take military action but the President does not order the armed forces to march?

What will happen if the commander-in-chief orders the armed forces to march but the Prime Minister, through the Finance minister and Parliament, refuses to release the required funds?

And what will happen if the President, in a signal display of armed force, orders the army to surround and blockade Parliament and the Treasury until all the funds he requires are approved and released?

If power emanates from the barrel of a gun, as the late Chinese communist leader, Mao Ze Dong, used to say, will there be any doubt as to who will be the real leader in such a dispensation?

By all means, power needs to be distributed among as many offices of state as possible. But the ultimate state power cannot and must not be scattered in the name of equity or political expediency.

This ultimate state power must rest in the hands of one man or woman, not two, three or 15. If you scatter this power, you sow the seeds of confrontation, confusion and controversy and, ultimately, sheer disaster.

The new constitution must clearly identify which personage, between the President and the Prime Minister, will be the supreme political authority in the land.

It must leave no doubt whatsoever about where the political buck will stop.

It must leave no doubt about the identity of the office which will have the final say on whether our soldiers should be sent out of the barracks to fight and, if necessary, die for this country.

After we have agreed on which office that will be, we can then sort out the supplementary question of how the person to hold that office shall be elected.

Two last points. The person with the final authority to send our young men and women into war must be accountable to Parliament and to the rest of the country.

He must also be the same person who oversees our foreign relations, treasury and home affairs. It cannot work efficiently and harmoniously any other way.

Finally, there is no need to be obsessed and blinded by these titles of President and Prime Minister, We don’t need both of these offices. We can survive very well with just one of them. Ask the British or the Americans.

—The writer (dominicodipo@yahoo.co.uk) is a lecturer and consultant in Nairobi.