Address cost of living to make talks relevant

Garbage collector walks to a weighing bay for plastics he had collected in Kibra, Nairobi, on October 04, 2023. Many youths resort to odd jobs to make a living in the city, where the cost of living has gone up. Used bottles are taken for recycling to make brand-new containers. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

The National Dialogue Committee, co-chaired by National Assembly Majority leader Kimani Ichung'wah and Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, deserve credit for the manner they have conducted the talks and its outcome so far.

Despite the delicate political atmosphere, the team has remained deaf to naysayers and reached consensus on nearly all issues on the table.

By Friday, consensus had been reached on even the hitherto most controversial issues such as auditing of last year's presidential election, which Azimio La Umoja had singled as one of its irreducible minimums but which Kenya Kwanza Alliance had declared a closed chapter.

According to Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire, whose clear-headed approach to the talks has been inspiring, the two sides have agreed on a framework on the audit of the electoral process, including the pre-election period, which will be done in two weeks.

While Azimio initially wanted the exercise to determine who between President William Ruto and its flagbearer Raila Odinga won last year's contest, Raila has since clarified that his main interest in demanding that the IEBC servers be opened is to prevent a repeat of any malpractices that might have occurred and strengthen Kenya's electoral process.

Indeed, it is important that Kenya finds a way of ending the cycle of post-election disputes that often put the country on the edge and result in violence.

At the same time, the parties have agreed on restructuring the selection panel charged with recruitment of the IEBC chairman and commissioners to include representatives of political parties and other interest groups.

This has been a contentious issue but it is our hope that a way will be found to ensure the panel will be beyond reproach and it will eventually give the country a team that will be truly a neutral umpire.

While these are welcome developments, alongside the other agreed agenda, it is of concern that the dialogue team is yet to thrash out the agenda that is of most interest to ordinary Kenyans - the high cost of living. While Azimio had listed it among irreducible minimums amid contention by Kenya Kwanza that the government has already put in place measures to mitigate the situation, the fact that it appears to have been put in the backburner is discomforting for majority Kenyans.

With the deadline to the timeframe given to the dialogue team fast approaching, it is our hope that it will seek to show Kenyans that concrete progress has been made on the same.

Otherwise, the team will prove its critics right - that the exercise was all about their interests, including creating offices for the elite, and not those of the suffering common mwananchi who risked life and limb to take to the streets demanding action.