Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has affirmed that the government is in full support of the bipartisan talks.
Mudavadi urged Kenyans to coalesce and rally together in a move to fix the challenges facing the country at the moment.
He was speaking in Nakuru County on Wednesday during a multi-sectoral consultative workshop on post-election electoral law reforms agenda, organized by the Electoral Law and Governance Institute for Africa (ELGIA).
“I want to assure Kenyans that the government is in full support of the successful conclusion of the bipartisan talks. We want to see something constructive coming out of this process since we have a country to protect and defend together, so there is no intention to walk away from that responsibility,” he said.
He said the current situation facing the country especially the harsh economic times and high cost of living requires a collective approach in finding solutions.
Mudavadi said the call of dialogue by leaders across the country was the best route to get the country together.
“Everybody currently appreciates the need to have a dialogue between both the government side and the opposition. Parliament constitutes the representatives of the people and through parliament, there is least of the worries for Kenyans,” he said.
“Assuming Kenyans get to find out that some international body was financing the talks, you can rest assured we might not have any positive results. But if Kenyans get to understand that it is their money on the table for the talks then we will move together.”
He called for a review of the electoral reform agenda adding that there is a need to factor in the laws governing the transition of executive authority to ensure a seamless handover of power after an election.
Mudavadi said there is a bill being drafted to be presented to parliament after undergoing proper public participation and dialogue to reinforce the assumption of office bill by putting in place key components that will govern the transition of executive authority to delink it from a ceremonial event that is not anchored in law firmly.
“We want the transition to go beyond the assumption of the office where a committee is set up just to prepare for a swearing-in ceremony of the elected President. The transition must be beyond the assumption of office. We want Kenyans to go further and make sure that transition is not just at the helm. What are the components that need to be dealt with for a smooth transition of executive authority?” he posed.
“This will also help us cure some of the things we saw at the Bomas of Kenya during last year's general elections. We witnessed very strange occurrences where politicians and even public officers who were supposed to undertake their duties diligently had to wait for instructions from a certain quarter.
“We had evidence of the Government Printer for instance, refusing to gazette and print the results of the elections amid claims that presumably they were waiting for orders from a certain corner.”
The Cabinet Secretary further regretted that even after the elections were over, the outgoing President and a section of the Cabinet Secretaries could still make and gazette names of individuals appointed to various positions amid a transition period to a new government regime.
“There are a lot of issues that need to be resolved for Kenyans to heal especially when it comes to matters elections. We need to align key areas for us to move together and leaders especially politicians should shun from speaking from one side of the divide without exhaustively finding out what is the real situation on the other side, ” he said.
“I also want to remind politicians that IEBC commissioners do not vote. It is the people who vote. We need to get away from the fallacy that this side had this number of commissioners let us say 4 and the other side had 3 commissioners. It is time we all ask ourselves the fundamental questions on how we manage our electoral cycle and the final transition of power,” he said.
He was accompanied by Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, PS State Department for Parliamentary Affairs Aurelia Rono, registrar of political parties Ann Nderitu, members of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly among other practitioners and experts in the field of law and governance.