Reports that President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto are reaching out to CORD leaders for help in filling Government positions may be the best sign yet that Kenyans can expect a healthy spirit of bipartisan cooperation from their new administration. Coming hot on the heels of angry claims they were scheming to undermine the Opposition, they could help set the tone for a new Government seeking to break from the bitter divides that characterised the tenure of Uhuru’s predecessor.
Sources familiar with the matter say following a number of conversations in the days since Uhuru and Ruto’s April 9 inauguration, the CORD leader has been asked to forward the names of allies he would want co-opted into Government. The process of getting these names together has generated some contention within ODM, the lead party in the coalition, but this seems set to be resolved in coming days.
The upshot is that, as promised by Ruto on Tuesday, Kenyans could see some ‘surprises’ in various Government positions, including the Cabinet. This bodes well for national healing and cohesion after the struggles over having the whole nation represented in our governance structures. It, however, does not contradict the need for strong checks and balances to State power.
Parliament works best with a robust Opposition, so CORD’s arguments for strengthening their place in the House are spot on. Its role, however, is to hold the Government of the day to account on behalf of the people, not to needlessly obstruct business it would otherwise carry out were it in power. To that extent, voters expect a certain degree of bipartisanship on matters that are in the public interest. Working together in the National Assembly and the Senate, Government and Opposition can, and should, give life to the reforms or projects on which they both agree in principle. Only where real differences exist and compromise is out of the question would we expect partisan action.
Outside the House, however, the scope for working together is even greater. It does a divided nation a world of good to see their elected President reach out to those he defeated at the polls and invite them into his Government. The politics of exclusion has been a sore point in the national psyche for decades. In the multiparty era, political vehicles for tribal-based politics have only served to make this problem worse. After the violent crisis that followed the 2007 presidential election, Kenya adopted a new Constitution and other reforms that attempted to address this issue. They succeeded only partly, as is evidenced by the ethnic formations in this year’s presidential contest.
What Kenyans could not achieve by law, however, can be secured by acts of goodwill such as the ones being demonstrated by Uhuru and Ruto. We urge CORD’s Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka to accept this gesture and help improve the governance of this nation by pushing forward the talent that lies within the ranks of their supporters. While this is a political exercise for both the Jubilee leaders and the CORD team, it must be conducted with respect for the parliamentary process of confirmation that must follow. Horse-trading to rescue political cronies would not be acceptable on either side, especially as it would require some pressure on Members of Parliament to turn a blind eye. Any accommodations between Jubilee and CORD on the Executive must pass all parliamentary checks and balances without undue influence.
This spirit of co-operation amid political competition is also essential to the success of devolution as enshrined in the 2010 Constitution. Obstructionism will take us nowhere. The people’s mandate is clear and so is the law. Thus, the on-going discussions between the national and county governments are a good first step towards the climate of “consultation and cooperation”. If there is a goal to which all governance institutions should aspire, it would be to set a higher bar for the battles they fight. Petty politics has held this nation back for far too long: It is time for real issues to guide political actions.
