President Uhuru Kenyatta tasted his first defeat in the National Assembly where his ruling Jubilee coalition has majority after MPs voted to reject Monica Juma, his nominee for the post of Secretary to the Cabinet.
The MPs voted to support a report by the committee that vetted Dr Juma, the current Interior principal secretary, and recommended that she was unsuitable for the top seat whose holder sits in the Cabinet.
The decision of the House has put the President in a legal dilemma because it effectively means that Juma may not continue in public service given that the people's representatives have no faith in her leadership.
Her replacement at Interior, Maj-Gen (rtd) Gordon Kihalangwa, is scheduled for vetting in the House.
The big news of the day was the Budget speech by National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, but the MPs were determined to block Juma's nomination as they delayed Rotich by half an hour to make their point.
Majority Leader Aden Duale and his minority counterpart Francis Nyenze had tried to push through the debate and Juma's approval and to even seek more time to change the minds of the MPs, but they failed.
MPs voted 163-55 to reject the proposed extension by 10 days, and then voted verbally to reject Juma's nomination. Three MPs abstained from the vote.
As Duale and Nyenze spoke, their respective voices were drowned by chants of "Juma must go", but a group of MPs that wanted the PS to get the Cabinet job countered with "Juma must stay".
The MPs shouted, waved and stood up to get the attention of Speaker Justin Muturi to put the matter to vote. The Speaker tried to ignore the shouts, and when he couldn't hold it any longer — the MPs were too unruly — he stood up and reminded them the essence of decorum.
"The majority will have their way, but the minority must also be allowed to have their say," said Mr Muturi.
The chairman of the Administration and National Security Committee Asman Kamama had asked MPs to back his report rejecting Juma and was seconded by Humphrey Njuguna (Gatanga).
Kamama and Njuguna harped on the controversial letter by Juma to the clerks of the two Houses — that MPs were seeking illegal favours from her office — to marshal the numbers for her rejection.
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