Why the 13th Parliament should never be forgiven

Never in the recorded history of institutional comedy, have few spectacles rivaled Kenya’s 13th Parliament. In my books, it will go down as the worst Parliament cohort in Kenya’s history. Here is a legislative body gifted with the most robust constitutional armor in the nation’s history, the 2010 Constitution, yet it has spent its term auditioning for the role of the Executive’s most loyal footstool.

Never before has a Kenyan Parliament been so lavishly equipped to defend its supremacy, only to drop its sword, salute smartly, and ask, “Would you like ugali saucer with that executive order?”

History offers a grim yardstick. In 1964, just months after independence, 6 KADU Senators and 22 MPs led by Ronald Ngala defected en masse to KANU, paving the way for the Senate’s swift abolition. Parliament proved pliable from the start.

By 1982, KANU’s 158 MPs unanimously passed Section 2A, crowning Kenya a de jure one-party state and neutering democracy for nearly a decade. Fast-forward to 1993: Ford-Asili entered Parliament with enough seats to claim official opposition status, only for KANU-orchestrated defections to hand the mantle to Ford-Kenya. The script was always the same; numerical majorities dissolved under patronage like wet-fry on a platter.

One might have hoped the 2010 Constitution would retire this tired playbook. It promised fixed majorities, protected parliamentary independence, and robust oversight. No more casual floor-crossing. No more Speakers doubling as party enforcers. No more unanimous rubber-stamping. The reformers dreamed of a legislature that would finally roar. Instead, the 13th Parliament yawned, stretched, and rolled over.

From inception, it turned its constitutional armor into decorative cosplay. The majority-minority wars became a judicial long-running series, featuring disputed coalitions, post-election agreements, and a Speaker whose dual role as House referee and party leader would make even 1960s defectors blush.

When courts politely suggested this arrangement smelled unconstitutional, the response was classic: appeal, delay, and proceed as though nothing happened. Previous eras needed blunt force. The 13th achieves the same result with lawyers, press statements, and selective amnesia. The minority coalition, who are supposed to be the majority coalition, chomp away as if the ruling were a paper napkin at their buffet.

This House has perfected sophisticated surrender. Bills sail through with minimal resistance. Controversial fiscal measures pass amid public outrage, while robust oversight appears only in press releases. Critical votes see strategic absences.

The same Parliament blessed with more female representation, better funding, social media limelight, and active courts somehow finds its spine only when defending its perks. It is executive capture upgraded for the 21st century, less crude than Moi’s era, more refined than the 1990s defections, yet spiritually identical.

The deepest cut is the squandered promise. Earlier Parliaments operated with weaker tools and behaved accordingly. The 13th received the strongest safeguards and still chose the path of least resistance. It traded supremacy for patronage, institutional courage for individual comfort, and legacy for broad-based invitations. Where the 1964 defectors and 1982 one-party architects operated in an era of limited checks, today’s legislators do it with the full 2010 toolkit at their disposal.

As this Parliament nears its curtain call, history will record it not as the victim of an overbearing Executive, but as a willing participant that treated constitutional supremacy like an optional extra. The 2010 document assumed adults in the room. It got MPs who prefer to remain perpetual juniors for 30 pieces of silver.

Kenya’s citizens, who have endured decades of this recurring farce, from KADU’s betrayal to Ford-Asili’s undoing to Section 2A’s suffocation, deserve better than a House that reads the Constitution like a menu and orders only the items the Executive finds palatable. The 13th had every tool to break the cycle.

Instead, it updated the old script with better lighting and fancier legal footnotes. In the end, no constitution can save a Parliament determined to kneel. The safeguards were magnificent. The courage, tragically, remains on back order