Recall clause could create political turbulence

Kennedy Buhere

Section 131 of the Harmonised Draft Constitution empowers the electorate to recall their elected Member of Parliament before the expiry of the incumbent assembly.

While the principle underlying the clause is sound, it is likely to create instability in the operations of the Government in general.

On the other hand, the clause ignores a fundamental theory of representative government enunciated by British Statesman, Edmund Burke in his famous speech to the electorate at Bristol on November 3, 1774.

He argued that a public official such as an legislator is a trustee of the national interest and not a champion of the local prejudices of those who elected him.

Burke observed: "Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.

"You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a Member of Parliament".

Unbiased opinion

"If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect."

The recall clause invalidates the principle of trust ship; a principle which requires an elected legislator, no less a nominated Member of Parliament to deploy "his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience in discussing issues that Parliament handles and determine them in the light of the national interest".

Founders of Republican or Democratic Governments the world over recognise that while democratic form of government is the best, it must be protected from the clear and present dangers of anarchy, of demagogues and the gullibility of the people.

Constitutional makers structure government on such principles and values to guard the Government and the State from the danger of tyranny on one hand, as well as from the dangers of too much democracy, the demos, which philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli called anarchy — the degenerate version of democracy.

Evidently, the recall clause empowering the electorate to send an MP who in its view, is not performing, has lost sight of this great guide in Constitution making.

The Committee of Experts shouldn’t have listened to the bigotry and envy of the members of civil society through whose influence the recall clause was inserted in the Original Bomas Draft in the first place.

National interest

The US Constitution—reputed to be document that presumably enunciates basic ideas, ideals and principles of democratic Government —nevertheless viewed democracy with caution.

Should the CoE retain the recall claus, what the elected MPs will do — to keep their jobs — is to be unduly local in their outlook.

They will ignore the call of the national interest — for those inclined to do so — because they risk being recalled should they take positions that threatens the immediate interest of their electorate.

The writer is a commentator on political and social issues.