High intrigue behind ODM’s change of tune

Gichugu MP Martha Karua and nominated MP Millie Odhiambo leave the conference room at Great Rift Valley Lodge, Naivasha, where the Parliamentary Select Committee is discussing the draft constitution. Photo/HEZRON NJOROGE

By GEKARA MAYAKAPosted Saturday, January 23 2010 at 20:00

In Summary

• CONSTITUTION: Reports that senior leaders of the party who have long voiced loud opposition to what they called ‘imperial presidency’ suddenly showed up at the Naivasha retreat to support it raise more questions than answers about their game plan

If Mzee Joseph Kiboi Theuri was to return from the grave, he would disbelieve the parliamentary team that has been holed up in Naivasha trying to hammer out a deal on the constitution.

On Thursday afternoon of October 18, 1968, Mr Theuri, the first Nyeri MP, had put a strong fight for creation of the post of PM. Mr Theuri wanted a government headed by the prime minister who also chaired Cabinet, a premier who “would attend Parliament to be heckled by everybody”.

His motion was defeated and he died before the post was created.

The House team has all but spelt a death sentence to the position of prime minister with their choice of a pure presidential system.

Unless the decision is overturned later, the powerful and influential post which has graced Kenya’s political landscape twice — held by founding President Jomo Kenyatta and now Mr Raila Odinga — will be removed from the public bureaucracy.

The Naivasha team’s decision, which is likely to hold to the end, upsets the political arithmetic that calculating politicians had begun to place on the post as an attractive bargaining tool.

According to the House team, the outcome was informed by the desire by Kenyans for one centre of power with strong checks — probably a lesson from the dysfunctional PNU-ODM coalition which occasionally projects the President, Prime Minister and their ministers reading from different scripts.

But perhaps more intriguing is the sudden change of heart by forces initially opposed to the presidential system in favour of the parliamentary system, notably politicians in Mr Odinga’s ODM party.

ODM leaders have been shouting themselves hoarse in support of the parliamentary system as the best way to check an “imperial presidency”. They had wanted a governance structure with the prime minister as both head of state and government and a figurehead president.

But sources close to the Naivasha negotiations who were unwilling to be identified breaking House rules because the talks were held behind closed doors, revealed that the proposal to adopt a presidential system was initiated by ODM deputy leader William Ruto and seconded by his colleague, deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi.

On January 12, Mr Mudavadi addressed a press conference after a meeting of ODM ministers — including Mr Ruto — where he announced that the party will root for parliamentary system in a new constitution. The meeting was chaired by Mr Odinga, the party leader.

He said ODM was for the system where government is accountable to the people through Parliament as opposed to the presidential system which he described as “undemocratic and opaque”.

He said the concentration of power in one centre had bred tribalism, dictatorship and bad governance.

“A parliamentary system will cover the diversity of our nation,” he said.

He said those calling for retention of imperial presidency were not “serious about having an accountable government”.