Taming presidency enough for now

By Okech Kendo

The Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review is generous with the Executive, which has been at the centre of the country’s tragic moments. The presidency, which could have been a candidate for abolition, is merely dehorned.

An almighty President, whose power to reward and punish individuals and communities, is a matter of historical notoriety. It has been the most intrusive and stubborn institution, too preoccupied with protecting its dignity, even when honour has been squandered. The potential symbol of national unity has been the most divisive institution.

The kill-all-moment for the presidency was the 2007 presidential election. The President appointed 17 of 21 electoral commissioners to preside over a contest in which the incumbent was a competitor. The Justice Minister Martha Karua, who has since tasted the wrath of the Executive, justified the mendacity, insisting the President had broken no law. The Constitution, she held, gives the President power to referee a match in which he is a player.

Then there were the chairman of the Electoral Commission, the Chief Justice and the Attorney General, who hold (or held) constitutional offices at the mercy of the President, who endorsed his disputed claim to victory. As the Commander-in-Chief, the President had the self-serving business of reclaiming the peace by suppressing protest.

These blunders were possible because the President is the Commander-in-Chief, the Head of State and Head of Government. Such powers give the presidency the authority of a maniacal monarch.

Constitutional review offers wananchi the opportunity to demolish the presidency. But the Committee of Experts has been kinder by merely taming it. Such checks, like denying the President powers that come with being Head of Government, could contain the possibility of recurrence of post-election mayhem.

Anti-change forces

The presidency had at its control gullible unit commanders, malleable institutions of justice and a susceptible electoral commission. It was also captive to vested interests. That was how some businessmen entered the International Criminal Court list of suspects. Owners of capital were protecting their patron.

Compromises have been possible because of a powerful presidency beholden to vested interests. Politically correct individuals that the presidency rewarded are among the richest today. Major landowners made their hay under President Jomo Kenyatta.

Whatever other causes have aided the bloom of the Mungiki gang, they are products of abuse of presidential power. So are the internally displaced persons in the Rift Valley. Once their land in Central Province was grabbed and given to the politically connected, the alienated became squatters in Nakuru, Rongai, Trans Nzoia, Molo, and Naivasha.

Kikuyu IDPs have no heritage in Central Province because the Kenyatta regime dislocated them.

Then there are communities that have suffered the wrath of the presidency. For 46 years, the president has been an all-knowing being whose influence is second to a god’s. That is how those who have benefited from presidential largesse want it. Those who have tasted the wrath of a president detest this. They may want the institution tamed, if not demolished. But the CoE proposes a good compromise.

The late Bildad Kaggia suffered the wrath of a presidency that controlled the power to enrich its yes-men, and to impoverish those who had the temerity to question presidential betrayal of the ideals of Uhuru. The late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenyatta’s comrade-in-arms in the struggle for independence, also suffered the wrath of an imperial president. This was when turnaround Kenyatta began to suppress his colleagues who did not deviate from the promises of Uhuru.

When Odinga wrote Not Yet Uhuru, it was a statement on presidential betrayal. The tensi-on between Kenyatta and Odinga hit its nadir in 1969, when their ideological differences took a tribal turn. From thence, Kenyatta said goodbye to Odinga’s political turf. Wananchi had dared to jeer the President. The Vice-President had to take over presidential assignments in Nyanza.

Tribalism, protecting class interests, perpetuating impunity, and frustrating justice blossom because presidential leadership is captive to vested interests. The presidency has been a captive institution. But rather than confront the presidential challenges, the excuse has been to spare the president by blaming patrons.

CoE does not propose a radical departure, to make the draft acceptable to victims and beneficiaries of presidential dictat. Taming the presidency and later abolishing it could grow leadership that addresses aspirations of the majority.

—The writer (kendo@standardmedia.co.ke) is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Quality and Production.

 

 

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