A Political Kenya: Latest Politics and Kenya Economy News

At last, Kenyans have decided that the old order must be history. The era of the imperial presidency and parliamentary dictatorship must be put behind us now. It is a feeling one gets after having had a good but gruelling fight.

With seven out of eight provinces voting for the new constitution, no sensible individual can fault Kenyans for demanding the necessary reforms in the new constitution.

After the votes were tallied, the Greens had a clear win by garnering more than 3 million votes above the Reds. At 70 per cent vote win, the Reds cannot claim unfairness.

And with international observers everywhere monitoring every step from the polling stations to the electronic relay centres and finally to the National Tallying Centre at the Bomas, this win is as convincing as any democratic process can be. As at 2.15pm, the Yes votes had reached 5,482, 698 and still counting against the Green side's 2,418,153 votes.

As a campaigner and a voter for the new constitution, I feel good because we decided to change our fortunes drastically. We learnt a bitter lesson in the 2007-2008 post-election violence when, due the recklessness of our leaders and poll referees, we subjected our people to unnecessary pain and conflict. And if there is one thing that this new constitution will be able to do, it will deal a deadly blow to the culture of impunity that has brought our country to its knees in the eyes of the international community.

As Kenyans, we can stand tall again and claim our place of pride among the community of nations. We have proved that we can reclaim our lost glory as a proud and democratic country capable of making our own decisions. This pride should be shared with all our member states of the East African Community and the rest of Africa at large.

The fact that nine million Kenyans woke up at dawn to line up and vote in the chilly weather and did so peacefully is a testimony that we have learnt something from our ugly recent past.

The 2007 elections were largely messed up by the political power elite that thought it unthinkable to have a peaceful regime change.

The nature of our culture of impunity where the political leadership exploited and oppressed the masses made it impossible for a clean political contest to take place. In the end, we had organised militias in the payrolls of political warlords take over our lives. We had all our highways blocked by hired goons and millions of shillings lost in burnt homes and property. A fresh ugly face of impunity gained currency causing the deaths of 1,500 innocent Kenyans while causing thousands more homeless.

Despite spirited and acrimonious campaigns in the run up to this year's referendum, the tones of our political leaders changed drastically to that of reconciliation urging Kenyans to vote peacefully.

And the fact that Kenyans chose to heed the peace calls from President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila, former President Moi and the Reds leader William Ruto was a clear demonstration that it is the politicians who always incite voters to go to the streets.

This time round, they called on them to remain calm despite the outcome which they obediently did.

As I wrote this article, something else happened in our election process that was not there in 2007. The Reds leader called a press conference and conceded defeat 18 hours after the polls closed. This early conceding of defeat even before the final votes were tallied indicated that politically we were coming of age.

The last time we had this kind of gesture was in 2002 when Uhuru Kenyatta conceded defeat against Kibaki.

However, in this early analysis of our referendum results, credit must go to the Interim Independent Electoral Commission led by Issack Hassan for running the polls as professionally as they could ever do.

The mere fact that the Commission went electronic in relaying provisional results right from the polling stations to the National Tallying Centre in Nairobi despite opposition from the Reds in itself speaks volumes.

The mere fact that these provisional results were also availed to all media networks was a plus in the process. This decision made Kenyans and the rest of the world to follow the proceedings in detail and this implied transparency and accountability made it impossible for anybody to even think of rigging the polls.

There is one incident that happened in Western Kenya that served as a lesson to would-be election riggers. A poll supervisor who announced the wrong results was immediately arrested by a presiding officer and instantly appeared in court yesterday morning. It is this kind of act that can clean Kenya's politics.

If this Kenyan experience cannot be a good lesson to the rest of Africa, then it is difficult to know what can be called good best practice for the rest of the continent to emulate.

The writer is a media consultant.

An ODM official at the Yes secretariat discriminated against workers from regions outside of Nyanza when it came to paying the staff. The official opted to pay only those people coming from Nyanza and ignored the rest. Now they are considering filing a formal complaint with the National Cohesion and Integration Commission citing discrimination on ethnic grounds!

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The Yes team reportedly spent close to Sh1.2 billion in their referendum campaigns. Since there was not much money forthcoming from the ODM side of the secretariat, speculation is rife that the party may have had to dip into its party coffers to fund its share of the budget. An official has whispered to us that the funds could have originated from their political party's kitty.

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Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo's not very vigorous campaigns in his Mbooni constituency during the just ended referendum is now being remarked upon by some of his Parliamentary colleagues in Ukambani. They say they have just realised that Kilonzo did not campaign at all in his constituency and did not attend any rallies including the ones in Kisumu, Uhuru Park and Kitui which were attended by his bosses President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila and Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka.

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The numerous foreign observers who were crisscrossing the Rift Valley have given rise to speculation that some of them were actually spies masquerading as observers. Whatever they were, their presence in the region and especially in the Mt Elgon, Burnt Forest and Molo areas, considered hot spots, did not go unnoticed.

The popular verdict is in. The overwhelming majority of Kenyans have spoken. The commanding victory margin demonstrates beyond doubt that Kenyans have rejected the old retrogressive constitution in favour of the new one. They have rejected lies and propaganda and chosen the truth. They did so with their votes, as required in a democratic exercise. The process was free, fair, transparent and democratic. It was also peaceful. The tallying of votes was conducted in a transparent manner. The results, therefore, are not in dispute.

But this victory is just the beginning of a long process of social, cultural, economic, political, legal and institutional reconstruction.

For the past fifty years, Kenyans have undergone gross human rights violations, economic and political crimes. Rules, laws and the constitution had little meaning to the majority. Political power and money were elevated to become gods and worshipped. The economy stalled. Infrastructure decayed. Life became a burden for the majority. Only a tiny minority benefited from the country's abundant resources. For fifty years, Kenyans have been a disillusioned lot.

Each time they have had legitimate expectations of prosperity, a functioning governing system and a responsive leadership; their hopes have been dashed.

The new constitution promises to turn things around. If implemented fully and promptly, the problems of the past might be discarded for ever. Are Kenyans up to the challenge?

The implementation is a daunting task, full of both promises and dangers. But the critical thing Kenyans must appreciate is that a constitution is an organic document. It must be read, understood and implemented as a whole. One cannot cherry-pick bits and pieces depending on one's personal desires. It is imperative that implementation be conducted with equal emphasis to all parts of the constitution.

In other words, the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the new supreme law apply equally to a 'Green' and to a 'Red' or 'Watermelon.' Discrimination is illegal regardless of how one voted. But the main problem emerges with implementation. It is reasonable to assume that those who were opposed to the new constitution will not stop opposing merely because they have lost.

In as much as the new constitution is for all Kenyans, those responsible for its implementation must, of necessity, be people who strongly and unequivocally supported its ratification. It would be dangerous to place opponents of the constitution in charge of giving it life and meaning.

Many senior government officials - particularly cabinet ministers, assistant ministers, permanent secretaries and heads of state corporations - openly opposed and campaigned against the draft. They ought not to be responsible for any aspects of implementation. This would avoid creating opportunities for opponents of the draft to sabotage its implementation to prove that it is 'unworkable.'

Moreover, the constitution itself makes clear that certain key government posts need to be cleansed from entrenched bureaucratic forces. That is why it requires prompt replacements for the Attorney General, Chief Justice, Director General of the NSIS, head of police, administration police and prosecutorial services, Auditor General and other key positions.

The new constitution creates mechanisms for its implementation. It prescribes how new institutions will be established and staffed. For instance, it deliberately prescribes that the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee be formed by Parliament. But this is a new creature, distinct from the Parliamentary Select Committee which is deemed to have died a natural death on August 4.

The Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee is like an advisory board in a company. It is supposed to advise, not run the company on a daily basis.

The core business of implementing the constitution has been vested in the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution. Then there are other constitutional bodies like the National Land Commission; the Commission on Revenue Allocation Commission; the National Police Service Commission; the Public Service Commission; the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission; the Judicial Service Commission; the Public Service Commission; the Salaries and Remuneration Commission; the Kenya National Human Rights and Equity Commission; the Parliamentary Service Commission; the Teachers Service Commission; and the National Police Service Commission.

These are all independent constitutional bodies. In addition to the creation of the Supreme Court and the restructuring of the entire judiciary, the constitution provides for the roles of the executive, the National Assembly and the people. In this arrangement (except as provided for by the constitution itself), the executive chooses; the legislature vets; and the people hold those appointed to account. It is therefore important for each institution or office of state to recognise its role under the constitution to avoid unnecessary conflicts or attempts at the usurpation of power.

Kenyans must demand that implementation be done by competent ethical and skilled professionals. If implemented properly, past wrongs and misadventures will be buried forever. However, if implementation is mishandled or sabotaged, the constitution might turn out to be just another exercise in conmanship That must never happen.

The writer is the PM's adviser. The views expressed here are his own.

Winnie Wangui, daughter of PNU activist Mary Wambui, arrived in style at the Muthangari polling station. But it was the behaviour of her bodyguards that threw off voters on queue. They shoved people aside to allow Winnie to vote without queueing like the hoi polloi. The anger caused by the rough bodyguards was however forgotten when a wag in the crowd loudly said: "I have only one dear wife!" which sent the voters into laughter. Another wag chimed in saying, "This is the last time she will come to vote with these bodyguards!"

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A KTN presenter allegedly attempted to cut off Prof Yash Pal Ghai when he accused former President Moi of sabotaging the 2002 Bomas draft constitution. Yash and a commissioner with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Omar Hassan Omar, were being interviewed on referendum matters. The station went into a commercial break but the presenter ran into more trouble when he said the Bomas conference was elitist and not people driven, which rubbed the good professor up the wrong way. The station went into yet another commercial break.

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Just why did the government deduct Sh100 from civil servants last month? Speculation is rife that the money which was deducted without the consent of the civil servants may have been used to fund the Yes campaigns. Majority of the civil servants, especially those in the Office of the President learnt of the 'illegal' deduction when they received their pay slips this week. With an estimated 250,000 civil servants [excluding teachers], this translates to a cool Sh25 million.

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A senior officer at the GSU headquarters in Ruaraka tried to stop civilians in the camp from going out to vote. It is not clear why the officer was opposed to the civilians exercising their civic right. The ban order was reversed after his colleagues prevailed upon him to rethink his decision.

Although at the time of writing this, the results of the referendum are not yet out, I think it is safe to assume that you will be learning in the course of the day that Kenyans voted to emphatically usher in a new constitutional dispensation.

This new constitution brings us very close to becoming a federal state. That is its key defining feature, which all the other major changes spring from.

In Kenya, we are accustomed to thinking of federal systems of government in terms of large nations like the US, Australia, Germany, Canada or closer to home, Nigeria. But there is Switzerland, a really small country, which has only seven million people. Yet it too is a federal state. And it has no less than 26 Cantons, which are the approximate equivalent of the counties that we will soon have under the new constitution.

So, for all intents and purposes, we now live in the Federal Republic of Kenya. But what does this really mean?

Well, for now let me focus on the good news, and say that we should be grateful that our new devolved administrative units are based on the old districts and not the provinces.

If the counties had been fewer and larger, it would have had the effect of legitimising and entrenching the "regional power brokers" or "tribal chiefs" who have perfected the art of uniting their tribesmen under the banner of resisting "marginalisation", and then proceeding to use the voting power of these regional blocks to serve their personal agenda.

This theatrical "resistance" to marginalisation would be harmless enough were it not for the fact that it usually involves the victimisation and stigmatisation of the minority "non-indigenous" communities in those areas.

So we should be glad to see an end to it.

The other good news is that there will be many more opportunities for leadership for the civic-minded 'among us.

In the past the only path to a meaningful role in national politics was through seeking a parliamentary seat, usually with the secret hope of finding your way to the Cabinet. But now there are all those governorships and deputy governorships, and county speaker, and senate speaker, and senators, and so on.

Out of all these, the one which will be most deeply coveted will be the governorships. As far as I can understand it, the new governors will be much like the Kenyatta-era provincial commissioners, only they will be popularly elected, and they will be more.

For the sake of younger readers, I should explain that our founding president borrowed heavily from the colonial governors, in deciding how to rule Kenya. And he governed most visibly through the provincial administration which had barely changed from the colonial administrative structure he inherited.

And in those days the PCs were so often in the news, and they were such dominant public figures that they were as well known as ministers and even more powerful. But the new governors will have something that even those powerful PCs of old did not have: a constitutionally-mandated allocation from the national budget. They will therefore be the immediate means of salvation for their people, and will - to a large extent - determine whether their part of the country will prosper or stagnate.

Any really influential politician would obviously choose to be a governor, rather than one of almost 300 legislators, trying to get a hearing on the floor of Parliament.

Now in those countries with existing federal structures of government, it is the norm that those who wish to rise to higher office must first prove themselves in the successful management of public affairs at the regional level.

And although the most recent US presidential election featured two senators (Obama and McCain) it is usually former governors who end up president in that country George W Bush (former Governor of Texas); Bill Clinton (Arkansas); Ronald Reagan (California) and Jimmy Carter (Georgia).

So a few years from now, we may well have a situation where we can judge what a presidential candidate can do for the country, based on a proven track record of effective governance at the county level.

And that would certainly be a step forward. In the present situation, we tend to vote for the most effective campaigner, rather than the leader with the best track record.

The writer comments on topical issues.

For the past two weeks, the most important trials since the Kenyatta trial at Kapenguria in 1952-3, have been going on. Like the Kapenguria trial, the importance did not lie in the charges in the cases. In both sets of cases, these were inadequate to support the orders sought. Their importance lay in the possible serious and adverse consequences to the people of Kenya.

There were four petitions before the Interim Independent Constitutional Dispute Resolution Court sitting at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. They were deciding on matters that had the potential to drive away the high-profile campaigns from the headlines. This because the petitions were asking the Court to postpone or cancel the Referendum to be held on August 4, 2010.

These petitions had the potential to bring to an end all the efforts of the present constitutional review process. They had the potential to dash the hopes of millions of Kenyans, and prevent constitutional review for the next twenty years.

They could condemn us to continuing with the old constitution which had proven defective to prevent the events of 2007-8. The review process emerged out of the National Accord to prevent a recurrence in 2012 of the violence and breakdown of 2007-8. Thus, the postponement or cancellation of the Referendum would not only bring down the review process, but the National Accord itself. All this was at stake in the four petitions.

Some of the petitions were brought by a combination of interests opposed to change in Kenya. They furthered partisan interests and not the national interest. They challenged the new constitution on many grounds, among them diaspora voting, abortion and kadhis' courts.

One petition wanted the Court to draft multiple-choice questions for the referendum. The most common complaint was that the petitioners' views were not incorporated in the new constitution and therefore the Committee of Experts or the Parliamentary Select Committee had acted unlawfully.

The Court delivered its judgments early this week, the judges in each case taking turns to read the two-hour long judgments.

Several petitioners had asked the Court to expunge, add, suspend, reject, or rectify various sections of the Proposed Constitution. Some petitioners wanted the words 'national security' put in as a ground to deny human rights. These, it will be remembered, were the very words that were criminally inserted at the Government Printers, exposed and rejected.

The Court held it had no power to excise or to add to the document. The Court drew an analogy with 1 Corinthians 12.12. The document had to go to the referendum as an integral product of the organs of review. The Court was not an organ of review.

The Court examined the steps taken by the Committee of Experts at every stage. It considered the joint statement published with the Reference Group, which consisted of representatives of every sector of Kenyan society, including many of the churches.

It checked on the statutory methodology which the Committee of Experts used to determine what constituted contentious issues for .the purposes of the review act. This was because the statutory meaning of those two words differed from what lay persons would expect.

It did not simply mean any strongly contested issue. It meant the issues that had not emerged from consensus on the past drafts, (such as Bomas and Wako). The Court then held that it was satisfied the experts had acted correctly and not in violation of anyone's rights.

The review act and the constitution had given discretion to the experts. The Court held that the experts had to take into account more than only the differing and hotly contested views of various groups, including the petitioners.

The experts had to take into account a large number of other factors set out in Sections 25, 4 and 6 of the review act, including most importantly, national cohesion. The Court held that the discretion had been reasonably exercised.

The petitions asked the Court to make decisions on the content of the Proposed Constitution, on what should be in and not be in the draft.

The Court held that this was not its role, but was that of the organs of review culminating in the people through the referendum. "The Court cannot have a role higher than the people in this [constitution-making] process. It would amount to a judicial coup on the people's constituent power."

The Court finally held that no basis had been established by the petitioners to order any postponement or cancellation of the Referendum.

The writer is a lawyer.

Kenyans enjoyed a peaceful referendum day with no major incidents reported. The IIEC has done a good job so far. Wednesday 4th August was declared a public holiday to enable Kenyans to vote for or against the Kenya constitution. 27689 polling stations opened up at 6pm and closed at 5pm. There are no incidences of violence reported so far.

Vote counting is underway with live and real time results being streamed live at the IIEC tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya. Security has been beefed up by the GSU around Bomas.

As at 3 pm this afternoon, most stations had reported 50% turnout.

Nairobi - 60

Coast - Malindi Region - 30%

Coast - Mombasa - 60%

Rift Valley - Central/South Rift - 50%

Rift Valley - North Rift - 60%

Rift Valley - Baringo Constituency - 30%
Rift Valley - Kacheliba 10%

Central Province - above 50%
Central Province - Nyeri/Thika regions reported over 70%

North Eastern - Over 45%

Eastern Province - over 50%

Eastern Province - Lowe Eastern - over 70%

Western Province - Bungoma Region - 40%

Western Province - Kakamega Region - over 50%

Nyanza Province - Kisumu Region - 85%
Nyanza Province - Kisii Region - 80%