Why only MPs should elect president

By William Ruto

Should Kenyans elect or not elect the President? That is not the question. The question is: Is the Kenyan system of government accountable or not?

I submit that our governance structure as formulated in the Constitution is unaccountable, opaque, and oppressive and is the real source of our misery.

More than 15 years ago, Kenyans rightly identified the Constitution as the major problem and agitated for its overhaul. The contention was never over the people’s right to vote for leaders but the right to accountable leadership.

Kenyans have been voting for a President for the last 40 years and they have very little or nothing to show for it.

We now have a few billionaires comprising mainly those voted for and their cronies while millions of voters live in poverty. The campaign for a new constitution Kenyans waged through blood, sweat and tears was motivated by the belief that in their vote lay the power to create a more equitable Kenya.

The vote for a President, an MP and a civic leader is merely a means to this end. It is time we re-examine the value of our vote for the President. If it does not work for us, we should discard it. After all, Albert Einstein said: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Clear agenda

For the ordinary Kenyans, it matters less whether Mwai Kibaki or Raila Odinga is president. It however matters that there is a programme to create jobs, a plan for affordable food and a workable agenda towards a more prosperous and equitable Kenya.

It is not the person, it is not the President; it is the programme, the policy and the plan for solving our problems that we should vote for.

The lack of an accountable system of government is at the heart of our problems. Interest groups crafted our current governance structure in 1963, where the office of the Queen as Head of State and that of an Executive Prime Minister as head of government were rolled into one, creating a monster with absolute powers in the name of the President.

This kind of Presidency exists nowhere else. The proponents of this system should tell us where it has worked. Majority of presidential systems have turned out to be dictatorships. The President in our system is both head of State and head of government, controls the calendar of Parliament, determines the agenda and what is discussed by the National Assembly, is in charge of the Police and all Armed Forces and more dangerously every public servants serves at his pleasure.

Surely, such enormous power has the possibility of corrupting even the angels.

It does not matter how many times Kenyans vote for such a presidency, it will never work for them.

It has been ODM’s position, which I support, that Kenya, under a parliamentary system would have an accountable, transparent, consultative and participatory government and with a devolved structure to equitably distribute wealth.

The President should be elected by a college and serve as Head of State. The Prime Minister, being the leader of the party with the majority in Parliament, should form the government on the basis of a plan, programme and manifesto.

The Prime Minister should remain in office as long as he or she enjoys majority support for his party’s policies and can be replaced anytime that majority changes.

Party pledges

This way, the PM knows that he or she has the job only as long as he is delivering on his party’s pledges to the nation. The moment he ceases to deliver, the next best person will have the job. Our current system where the President has a five-year guarantee in office whether he or she delivers or not creates no motivation for the Chief Executive of the country to perform. Instead, the five-year guarantee is used to scheme how to steal the next election or the money to buy it.

The chief executive of government must have only one guarantee, that he has the job as long as he delivers on job creation, eliminates poverty and removes inequality.

This system of government has been tried and tested the world over, from India to Australia, Canada to Israel, Japan to The Netherlands. In fact, almost all modern democracies are parliamentary systems of governments. Kenyans can surely adopt a workable transparent, accountable, democratic system of government. Many other citizens of the globe have done it. I disagree with those who claim that Kenyans are incapable of electing good leaders in an accountable system of government. In fact, they contradict themselves when they allege that Kenyans are incapable of electing MPs, while they propose that the same Kenyans should never give up the right to vote for a President, even if the Presidency never worked for them. Kenyans are not only capable of choosing a good system of government, but also they are equally capable of choosing the correct leaders. I refuse to believe that Kenyans are of a lesser intelligence than other citizen of the world.

Thabo mbeki

Some have even attempted to discredit a parliamentary system because of what happened in South Africa. What happened to Thabo Mbeki is what an accountable system of government does to persons entrusted with executive power, who attempt to misuse it. The Judge in the Jacob Zuma case accused Mbeki of abusing his office by engineering charges against Zuma, his competitor. The ANC took action and recalled Mbeki and without bloodshed a replacement was found, clearly showing that ANC as an institution of governance is way greater than Mbeki, the person.

Mbeki’s recall may have also been linked to growing concerns by the ANC rank and file of his support for policies that promoted the interest of the few wealthy in South Africa to the exclusion of the majority, now languishing in abject poverty.

Pessimists tell us to forget about our political parties but instead follow individuals. That our parties are tribal, shortsighted and devoid of meaningful agenda. I do not agree. Our parties are not perfect, but they exist. We are better off developing them into institution of governance, rather than creating personality cults around individuals. Strong, stable, democratic, political institutions are the framework for developing plans, programmes and policies for better governance for our country.

Good parties do not happen; they are developed over time, and have to start somewhere. We should insist on that or even force our politics to be issue based, programme oriented and policy guided by developing our political party institutions. The politics of the person, our person, our community, our turn is primitive, retrogressive and outdated and should have no place in modern society. Political parties, their plans, programmes, policies and manifestos to which we can all subscribe irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, religion or any other consideration, are our future.

Obama

In the US, history is about to be made, if it has not already, with the candidature of Barack Obama, a first generation Kenyan-American.

It is not so much because of Obama the person, but the synergy created by the political party that brings together even bitter contenders like Hillary Clinton to support one position — that of the Democratic Party. The sooner we develop our institutions of governance, the earlier we demolish personality cults. That is why I support a parliamentary system that is based on political parties and not the other systems that are built around personalities.

The writer is the Minister for Agriculture and ODM Pentagon member.