Against all odds, another desperate attempt to quell recurring post-election chaos by the government and the opposition coalition team are calling for memoranda on some of the terms of reference deemed controversial.
Christened the National Dialogue Committee, the bipartisan talks, the third such initiative in 16 years, has an uphill task. It must deal with post-multiparty presidential polls that have been emotive and rekindle ethnic animosity, hatred and mistrust,
The Committee’s in-tray is full of suggestions, advice and demands, some of which are diversionary, retrogressive and could help inflame passions further, instead of providing relief from the polluted political atmosphere.
But this dialogue committee must demonstrate that it is different from its predecessors assigned such tasks. The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), the brainchild of former President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga was nipped in the bud by the courts.
But the Committee of Experts assigned the task to harmonise constitutional drafts after the 2007 electoral dispute never addressed the issue of the Executive excesses and its effects on polls.
Already, discordant voices in the corridors of power threaten to derail the well-intentioned reconciliation gestures brokered by no lesser persons than President William Ruto and his bitter political foe, Raila Odinga.
One of the agenda items is reconstitution of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and auditing of the controversial 2022 polls that declared William Ruto the winner.
The IEBC’s fate was sealed soon after the 2022 presidential poll when four commissioners questioned the results tallies upheld by the Supreme Court and foreign election observers.
Reconstitution of the electoral agency that lost a record eight commissioners in six years – the third in three decades – could be an exercise in futility without overhauling the age-old electoral statutes and settling for a different system that the electorate and candidates are not familiar with.
It is costly to be a commissioner in the IEBC as history testifies. Maneno ni Matatu: resign, flee the country or be dismissed. Indeed, one commissioner fled to the US, another was dismissed and six resigned. Little did the losers know that a new national chorus conspired against them.
Disgraceful exit of commissioners mid-term or after an election in the 31-year-old organisation is the norm rather than the exception, save for the ceremonious retirement of embattled immediate former chairman Wafula Chebukati. His predecessors lost their jobs for bungling presidential elections and corruption; their foreign accomplices were convicted and jailed in Britain.
The one-million-dollar question is this: is the IEBC an arbiter or hostage of the political class? From the look of things, the commission is a captive of the state that dates back to the one-party era.
In the meantime, a proportional representation electoral system is arguably the cheapest and most viable alternative for volatile Kenya where voter bribery, chaos and manipulation are rampant.
Under the system, voters choose parties for a five-year term and from the party list, the electoral body, through a lottery posts the party nominees to any of the country’s constituencies.
For 29 years, it was taboo to challenge the president in an election organised and supervised by his office, or to question his health. Kenya became a multi-party state in 1991 but the situation has not been different. Electoral commissioners were appointed by the president who had renewed interest in contesting election after a 14-year rule on the Kanu ticket.
Post-Independence opposition party, the Kenya Peoples Union (KPU), paid a heavy price for intending to challenge Jomo Kenyatta’s regime. Opposition leaders were detained without trial, rallies were banned and 1,800 local authorities candidates were locked out of the contest on the pretext that party leaders 'signatures’ on nomination forms were remarkably different from the ones on official documents.
For Kenyans to be saved the trouble of going to court over electoral injustices, the committee has to summon the courage, fear nobody, navigate the muddy waters and interrogate the conflict of interest in the Executive structure and how that affects the polls.
Without fear, the committee should suggest the separation of government from the state as one way of uniting Kenya and developing the country horizontally as opposed to skewed channelling of resources to the constituencies controlled by the president and his sycophants.
A national function and political party rally are indistinguishable events because the state and the government have been led by one person for 59 years. Party and state are inseparable entities likened to a private company whose shareholders stand to benefit from dividends.
As a result, service delivery can only be selective, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua reiterates that much in public forums. The symbol of national unity is questionable in the circumstances.
At Independence, the state and government were separate entities within the Executive with distinct roles in the nation. The governor general was the head of state, Jomo Kenyatta of Kanu was the Prime Minister and leader of government business in parliament and Ronald Ngala of Kadu the opposition leader.