A state of the Nation address? A campaign speech? A legislative programme? An honest assessment of achievement of our national values? A school report for the government?
It is generally called the State of the Nation address, presumably because the American President gives such an address to a joint session of Congress. Their Constitution says the President must, “from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” It does not have to be an address – but in modern times, it usually is.
This tradition, and constitutional provision, can be traced back to the British Parliament and the practice of British monarchs of making the Speech from the Throne at the annual opening of Parliament. This began in the late 17th Century, when the King was the head of government, though depending on Parliament to approve the royal budget.
President Ruto’s speech was more State of the Union than Speech from the Throne. The latter is a carefully phrased account of what “My Government” or “My Ministers” will do in terms of policies and laws in the coming parliamentary year. It is written by the Prime Minister, and is read word for word by the monarch. The latter may disagree with it – as many people have commented King Charles surely did on environmental issues, as the British government reneges on some of its environmental commitments – but has no choice
The former is more of a sales pitch – telling Congress and the nation what the government has achieved and what great things it plans to do, but not in the same detail about future laws as the Speech from the Throne.
What does our Constitution say?
Article 132(1) is a rather opaque clause of our Constitution – It envisages four different types of speech. They are: a required address at the opening of each newly elected Parliament; a required address to a special sitting of Parliament once every year; an optional address to Parliament at any other time; and a required annual address to the nation about achievements in connection with the national values in Article 10 of the Constitution. The President said that what he was doing on Thursday last week was the last of these.
There are also requirements about reports. Details of the issues on national values must be published in the Kenya Gazette (where laws and other government documents and announcements are published). The President must also, once a year, report to the National Assembly on the progress made in fulfilling the international obligations of the Republic – which is to be debated by the Assembly.
The Public Service Commission must report to the President and Parliament how far the national values and principles are complied with in the Public Service. And the National Security Council must report annually to Parliament on the state of national security.
You may have noticed that the President said he was presenting to the Speakers the reports on national values, international obligations and security. The Security report is from the National Security Council – which the President chairs. But the President (certainly President Kenyatta) has made this a personal obligation and Kenyatta’s 2020 report was presented as from him, and the Council was never mentioned. It also read a bit like a political manifesto at times, with a lot about what the Government has been doing. Though the Council does have the President and Deputy, three CSs and the Attorney General, the heads of the defence forces, the police and the intelligence services are also members.
Interestingly, these provisions did not change through the various constitution drafts: the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission’s in 2002, the Bomas draft in 2004, the Committee of Experts’ drafts and the final Constitution. That Parliamentary Select Committee that changed some of the draft, including the system of government, wanted to remove the list of functions of the National Security Council, and tended to exclude the Senate from some of these functions about addresses and reports.
Is the Constitution being complied with?
My belief is that the intentions of the Constitution are not being fulfilled, though I admit that the constitutional intention is not very clear. It is even less so because the system of government was changed from a basically parliamentary system to a presidential one.
Let me explain about that change. Until that Select Committee intervened, constitution drafts provided that the President was not the head of government. He or she would have been the Head of State, with many rather ceremonial roles, but also with rather more powers than usually found in a parliamentary system (like the UK, Canada, Australia, India and Mauritius), designed to be a restraining influence on the government of the day.
The difficult question is how far the President, in those early drafts, would have had any choice about making a speech or what the speech contained. The drafts of the Constitution did not have any general rule about the President having to act on the ‘advice’ of the Prime Minister.
There is such a statement in the Indian Constitution. And under Kenya’s Independence Constitution, the Governor General had to act on the advice of the Cabinet or a Minister or the Prime Minister, except in a few specified situations.
In those early, parliamentary, draft constitutions, the speech to the newly elected Parliament and the annual special occasion speech were perhaps intended to be on behalf of the Prime Minister.
But when they said the President “may” address Parliament on other occasions that surely meant he had the choice. I have a strong sense that the values address was also supposed to be something that expressed the President’s personal assessment of the “progress achieved” in realising the values.
Once the Select Committee had wished on us a US-style presidential system, the possible distinction between speeches disappeared. There is only one, combined, head of government and head of state. We must read Article 132 in the light of that change.
The wrong speech?
True, President Ruto did use the word “values” periodically, eight times in fact, and some specific values. Some values got no mention: devolution, rule of law, participation of the people and non-discrimination.
This was a speech that would have fitted better into the second type, as a special sitting of Parliament. It was really a ‘what great things we have done and shall do’ speech.
In fact, the annual special sitting speech and the values address to the people have been, unconstitutionally, rolled into one. President Kenyatta said to Parliament in 2021, “Article 132 of the Constitution mandates the President to report to a Special Joint Sitting of both Houses of Parliament on measures taken and progress made in the realisation of our national values as defined by Article 10 of our Constitution.”
In my view, the values speech should be focused on the values, and be a sober analysis of what has been done and how successful, or otherwise, government has been in realising them. A reflective not a campaigning speech.
Wrong audience?
One might argue an address to Parliament is an address to the nation – but not if the Constitution clearly sees them as different, meaning the values address is not meant to be the second type of speech to Parliament.
President Ruto was not addressing the people, he was very much focused on the people in front of him to the extent of saying to MPs, “You know we all get three per cent…” He was apparently referring to the mortgage scheme for MPs and other state officers, and, extraordinarily, suggested that social housing should not carry a higher interest for them, though for others it could be up to 9 per cent. This aside was not in the published text.
The values address should be not in Parliament but on television and perhaps before a physical audience of ordinary Kenyans. To the people.
