High-level dispute resolution teams fail to end wars

By Stephen Makabila

The collapse of two high level committees established in the early formative days of the Grand Coalition Government to help resolve deadlock, is to blame for recurrent instability in the coalition.

In 2009, the coalition partners entered some agreement developed by the Serena team of eight to save the coalition from persistent wrangles and possible collapse.

The committees – the Grand Coalition Co-ordination Board and the Grand Coalition Management Committee – were to act as dispute resolution bodies to ensure the coalition is not destroyed by the mutual suspicion.

While the two principals, President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga sat on the Co-ordination Board, the management committee was to be chaired by the two deputy Prime Ministers (Musalia Mudavadi and Uhuru Kenyatta).

Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, and ministers Uhuru Kenyatta, George Saitoti, Chirau Mwakwere, and Moses Wetang’ula (suspended) represented PNU side on the board while ministers James Orengo, Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto (suspended), Mohammed Elmi, and Amerson Kingi represented ODM.

"The committees collapsed after the failed Kilaguni talks. Nothing was heard of them after that," says Polycap Onyango, a corporate governance specialist.

Mr Onyango says power games in the coalition could not allow such committees to survive. This, he says, is because the membership on both sides has cards played under the table out of suspicion.

The Mudavadi-Uhuru co-chaired committee had ministers George Saitoti, Sam Ongeri, James Orengo and Charity Ngilu, Sally Kosgei, Mutula Kilonzo and Eldoret North MP William Ruto as members.

At the Kilaguni talks, glaring political differences, suspicion and grandstanding and vested interests led to the collapse of the talks.

The coalition management team chaired by Kibaki and Raila could not agree on the agenda of a meeting whose purpose was to set a timeline for reforms to be carried out in the second year of the Grand Coalition.

Bonding retreat

So deep were the differences that the President and the PM addressed separate and divergent news conferences in Kilaguni, and Nairobi at the end of what was supposed to have been a bonding retreat to promote cohesion in Government.

Just like this year, the early months of last year were equally frosty between the two coalition partners.

Last year, the Coalition Government plunged into a crisis amid standoff between Kibaki and Raila over corruption.

Kibaki had suspended eight senior officials for involvement in corruption, before Raila followed suit by announcing the then Agricultural and Education ministers (Ruto and Ongeri) had been suspended pending criminal investigations.

Kibaki later announced Raila had failed to consult him and called the move illegal. Raila asked mediator Kofi Annan, and allies, to intervene.

The two coalition partners however later found some common footing that led to the passing and promulgation of the new Constitution last year.

Political divides

This year, the relation between the two principals has not been well if the recent standoff over the judicial nominations is anything to go by.

Even after they met on Wednesday following days of friction between the two political divides, the principals failed to reach any deal, sending signals all may not be well.

Onyango says the only way out may be for minimum reforms and establishment of an Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to pave way for early elections.

"This is just a lull before we pump into another controversy. This way the country is not going to move forward," Onyango said.

However, some legal experts have dismissed Onyango’s argument as unpractical.

The Vice-President of the East African Law Society, lawyer James Mwamu noted the two principals had allowed MPs to run the coalition show.

"Those who around the two principals fuel the crisis we experience for their own benefits. Vested personal interests override national interests," Mwamu said.

Eldoret lawyer Titus Bittok says there is no country with a perfect image, but the principals should harmonise their relations.