Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Commentary (by John Mulaa) - America these days - Poghisio faltered as Nyong’o shone in US
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/columnists/?id=1143985520&cid=190
Published on April 27, 2008, 12:00 am
By John Mulaa
You can tell which side is better at public relations from the quality of its representation by spokespersons.
This is especially when they have to face tough audiences.
In the last two weeks, two ministers of the expanded Cabinet trotted to Washington DC, US, to attend to various matters.
They had to recapitulate their case before groups that were anxious to know more about the goings on in Kenya.
Mr Samuel Poghisio, minister for Information and Communications, was in the US to attend a conference related to his duties. He made a detour to Washington to talk to Kenyans at the Kenyan embassy.
Two days later, Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o made his appearance at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to talk about Kenya’s election aftermath and the prospects for peace through the power-sharing formula.
Poghisio gave a summary of what recently transpired in the country and offered his summations and pointers to the way forward. He specifically pointed out how he intends to deploy his ministry to "correct" the harm and loss the country has suffered in reputation as a safe tourist destination.
Poghisio’s trip to America was part of the damage-repair job.
Whether he succeeded or can ever hope to succeed is another matter. Some who listened to him found his assessments lacking in depth and vision in the light of the job at hand.
A PNU supporter at the meeting was not all too happy with the way the minister presented his case in the light of the Grand Coalition Government. The supporter said what he had just witnessed was an example of lack of appreciation of the true dimensions of the public relations problem the country is facing.
It did not help that the Ambassador, Mr Peter Ogego, was in a feisty mood, putting down one questioner who asked whether the Government would support Mr Maina Kiai’s application for the top UN human rights job.
In his interjection, Ogego was a little blunt and suggested that the questioner may have been "sent" — the Kenyan parlance for ill-motivated presence.
The atmosphere became somewhat charged but thanks to the ambassador’s deputy, the situation was quickly calmed.
Contrast this with Nyongo’s presentation at CSIS on "K" Street. The room was full even though the event started 9am on Friday, a time that is assured to deter a large turnout. What was even more intriguing was the composition of the audience: State-department types, academics from reputed institutions, and a handful of Kenyans from one side of the political divide. The grand coalition not withstanding, there were not many supporters of the other side of the former divide that has now been bridged through power sharing. That was a pity because had they showed up, they would have learned a thing or two how to move a well-educated American audience.
Nyong’o began by noting and lauding the role of the US in resolving the impasse. He enumerated why the US had to be engaged in the process and why it should remain close to Kenya.
He then went on to give a scholarly dissection of the country’s recent troubles — the moderator, Mr Joel Barkan, a noted American scholar on Kenya, called it erudite and then he took questions.
The only slight instance of discomfort during the session was a spirited exchange between the minister and an American questioner who happens to have written extensively on patterns of immigration and settlement in the Rift Valley from the onset of colonialism.
Nyong’o got a little irritable as he reminded the gentleman that had he listened carefully to his phraseology of the problematic, he would have discerned that at no time was he, the minister, suggesting that he had definitive answers. Beyond that things went well and the minister provided cogent answers to all the questions that were thrown at him, including one by yours truly, who asked whether the ruling elite in Kenya was in danger of losing its connection to the masses with the attendant possible consequences.
It happens that Nyong’o is the minister for Medical Services, a docket even he was unclear what it covers and what it excludes. What he said was certain was that he would share the ministry, formerly known as health, with Mrs Beth Mugo. Then he was off to other meetings.
For a moment after the presentation I wondered, which style would help repair faster the damage to its reputation that the country has suffered?
Published on April 27, 2008, 12:00 am
By John Mulaa
You can tell which side is better at public relations from the quality of its representation by spokespersons.
This is especially when they have to face tough audiences.
In the last two weeks, two ministers of the expanded Cabinet trotted to Washington DC, US, to attend to various matters.
They had to recapitulate their case before groups that were anxious to know more about the goings on in Kenya.
Mr Samuel Poghisio, minister for Information and Communications, was in the US to attend a conference related to his duties. He made a detour to Washington to talk to Kenyans at the Kenyan embassy.
Two days later, Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o made his appearance at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to talk about Kenya’s election aftermath and the prospects for peace through the power-sharing formula.
Poghisio gave a summary of what recently transpired in the country and offered his summations and pointers to the way forward. He specifically pointed out how he intends to deploy his ministry to "correct" the harm and loss the country has suffered in reputation as a safe tourist destination.
Poghisio’s trip to America was part of the damage-repair job.
Whether he succeeded or can ever hope to succeed is another matter. Some who listened to him found his assessments lacking in depth and vision in the light of the job at hand.
A PNU supporter at the meeting was not all too happy with the way the minister presented his case in the light of the Grand Coalition Government. The supporter said what he had just witnessed was an example of lack of appreciation of the true dimensions of the public relations problem the country is facing.
It did not help that the Ambassador, Mr Peter Ogego, was in a feisty mood, putting down one questioner who asked whether the Government would support Mr Maina Kiai’s application for the top UN human rights job.
In his interjection, Ogego was a little blunt and suggested that the questioner may have been "sent" — the Kenyan parlance for ill-motivated presence.
The atmosphere became somewhat charged but thanks to the ambassador’s deputy, the situation was quickly calmed.
Contrast this with Nyongo’s presentation at CSIS on "K" Street. The room was full even though the event started 9am on Friday, a time that is assured to deter a large turnout. What was even more intriguing was the composition of the audience: State-department types, academics from reputed institutions, and a handful of Kenyans from one side of the political divide. The grand coalition not withstanding, there were not many supporters of the other side of the former divide that has now been bridged through power sharing. That was a pity because had they showed up, they would have learned a thing or two how to move a well-educated American audience.
Nyong’o began by noting and lauding the role of the US in resolving the impasse. He enumerated why the US had to be engaged in the process and why it should remain close to Kenya.
He then went on to give a scholarly dissection of the country’s recent troubles — the moderator, Mr Joel Barkan, a noted American scholar on Kenya, called it erudite and then he took questions.
The only slight instance of discomfort during the session was a spirited exchange between the minister and an American questioner who happens to have written extensively on patterns of immigration and settlement in the Rift Valley from the onset of colonialism.
Nyong’o got a little irritable as he reminded the gentleman that had he listened carefully to his phraseology of the problematic, he would have discerned that at no time was he, the minister, suggesting that he had definitive answers. Beyond that things went well and the minister provided cogent answers to all the questions that were thrown at him, including one by yours truly, who asked whether the ruling elite in Kenya was in danger of losing its connection to the masses with the attendant possible consequences.
It happens that Nyong’o is the minister for Medical Services, a docket even he was unclear what it covers and what it excludes. What he said was certain was that he would share the ministry, formerly known as health, with Mrs Beth Mugo. Then he was off to other meetings.
For a moment after the presentation I wondered, which style would help repair faster the damage to its reputation that the country has suffered?
Sunday, 27 April 2008
Commentary (by Mutuma Mathiu) - Kenya in danger of becoming a failed state
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=121971
Story by MUTUMA MATHIU | Insight
Publication Date: 4/27/2008
Kenya is going to become dictatorship. We are going to have a dictator who abducts people at night and shoots them in Ngong Forest or “disappears” them — to the cheers of a population tired of massacres and political chaos.
Dictatorship is the natural consequence of the failure of democracy. It is the son of that brute called chaos and disorder; the natural heir of violence and destruction of property and livelihoods.
Complex social institutions are founded on thin filaments of psychology. Society is based on predictability of behaviour. The human person, I think, is quite incapable of dealing with chaos and uncertainty. The prospect of not knowing whether you will be around to harvest the crop you are planting is possibly worse than a ruler who will not allow you your freedoms.
THERE ARE MANY KENYANS WHO DO not know what tomorrow, or the day after it, will bring.
A failed state, in some definitions, is one in which the government is unable to provide its people with essential services, including security. It is also a state whose government is incapable of projecting authority across the whole of its territory. A government projects authority in two fashions: by the submission of its citizens to laws and so on, or by force when citizens exhibit a disinclination to obey.
One wonders to what extent the government of Kenya was in a position to project authority throughout the country where the roads were being dug up and folks massacred.
One also wonders to what extent the state’s instruments of coercion/force were united in terms of their allegiance at certain points in recent history and what that portends for the future, especially if our democracy continues to be chaotic and driven by ethnicity.
The source of Kenya’s political instability is an irresponsible political class and an uninformed, tribe-centred population.
The death of political institutions in Kenya has destroyed whatever little measure of control over politicians there used to be. At every election the political elite are fighting a no-holds barred fight for power and access to state resources. The country is at the mercy of the ambitions of our politicians.
And in that fight, they have mobilised and indoctrinated the population which views politics from a purely tribal prism. Sections of the population are also convinced that they will not survive, have access to government services and resources or find justice unless their elite get power by whatever means.
In the eyes of this indoctrinated and tribalised population, any measure, however illegal or immoral, to get power by its own elite is acceptable.
At election time, Kenya is a country without a boss, in the shape of a person, a set of values or principles. Anything goes in the vicious fight for victory. And therein lie the roots of our destruction.
Kenya is very different today from its neighbours Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. In Tanzania, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi keeps the Tanzanian ship steady, first, by being virtually unbeatable at elections with its candidates regularly returning more than 70 per cent of the vote.
Secondly, CCM is in charge of the country, its economy and its social life in ways very few parties have replicated in Africa. It also, through a series of committees, maintains tight control over the ambitions of politicians. Because it is such a powerful party, it is able to enforce defeat and force candidates to make way for others.
IN RWANDA AND UGANDA, THE RWANDA Patriotic Front and President Kagame and in the National Resistance Movement and President Museveni respectively, have such a tight grip on their countries that it is some matter of debate whether elections in those countries are open contests.
Many Kenyans would like to see the same kind of order and discipline here. And down that road lies the fate of dictatorship.
Speaking at one of the peace rallies in the Rift Valley on Friday, Agriculture minister William Ruto said there was something fundamentally wrong with Kenyan politics because every election year Kenyans massacred each other. The solution, he suggested, lay in a new constitution so that elections cease to be tribal contests and become a competition of policies.
It is possible that if the political class is afflicted by an epidemic of altruistic goodwill and patriotism and if constitutional review does not become an opportunity to fight the 2012 battles, then a new constitution might save Kenyan democracy.
But if the politicians behave true to form and violence recurs, then the country will either become a complete basket case — or a “saviour” in the form of an individual or group will emerge to “restore order,” to be met with cheers in the streets, and the Kenyan democratic experiment will be dead.
In my current pessimistic frame of mind, I think the latter is more likely than the former.
Imagine that your grandfather employed five people to work for him. Assume, for the sake of argument, that he was a good man who took care of his workers on the job and in retirement. Many of them retired and were entitled to a pension, which he was happy to pay. But rather than taking out insurance or putting them on a scheme, he paid their pension from his salary.
He passed on five pensioners and five serving employees to your father, who continued his father’s policy of charging their pension and salary on his own salary. Now your father has kicked the big bucket and has handed 14 pensioners (one has died) — aged but in sprightly health — and five workers. The pension bill is half of the wage bill and the two combined are 80 per cent of salary. What do you do (short of bumping off the pensioners and firing the workers)?
That is the same foolish policy the government of Kenya pursues. It pays pensioners from the budget and its bill has exceeded Sh20 billion a year — and growing fast. Very soon the pension bill will be one of the biggest items on the budget. What will it do then? What is wrong with civil servants saving for their own retirement, like the rest of us do?
Mutuma Mathiu is the Sunday Nation’s managing editor.
Story by MUTUMA MATHIU | Insight
Publication Date: 4/27/2008
Kenya is going to become dictatorship. We are going to have a dictator who abducts people at night and shoots them in Ngong Forest or “disappears” them — to the cheers of a population tired of massacres and political chaos.
Dictatorship is the natural consequence of the failure of democracy. It is the son of that brute called chaos and disorder; the natural heir of violence and destruction of property and livelihoods.
Complex social institutions are founded on thin filaments of psychology. Society is based on predictability of behaviour. The human person, I think, is quite incapable of dealing with chaos and uncertainty. The prospect of not knowing whether you will be around to harvest the crop you are planting is possibly worse than a ruler who will not allow you your freedoms.
THERE ARE MANY KENYANS WHO DO not know what tomorrow, or the day after it, will bring.
A failed state, in some definitions, is one in which the government is unable to provide its people with essential services, including security. It is also a state whose government is incapable of projecting authority across the whole of its territory. A government projects authority in two fashions: by the submission of its citizens to laws and so on, or by force when citizens exhibit a disinclination to obey.
One wonders to what extent the government of Kenya was in a position to project authority throughout the country where the roads were being dug up and folks massacred.
One also wonders to what extent the state’s instruments of coercion/force were united in terms of their allegiance at certain points in recent history and what that portends for the future, especially if our democracy continues to be chaotic and driven by ethnicity.
The source of Kenya’s political instability is an irresponsible political class and an uninformed, tribe-centred population.
The death of political institutions in Kenya has destroyed whatever little measure of control over politicians there used to be. At every election the political elite are fighting a no-holds barred fight for power and access to state resources. The country is at the mercy of the ambitions of our politicians.
And in that fight, they have mobilised and indoctrinated the population which views politics from a purely tribal prism. Sections of the population are also convinced that they will not survive, have access to government services and resources or find justice unless their elite get power by whatever means.
In the eyes of this indoctrinated and tribalised population, any measure, however illegal or immoral, to get power by its own elite is acceptable.
At election time, Kenya is a country without a boss, in the shape of a person, a set of values or principles. Anything goes in the vicious fight for victory. And therein lie the roots of our destruction.
Kenya is very different today from its neighbours Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. In Tanzania, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi keeps the Tanzanian ship steady, first, by being virtually unbeatable at elections with its candidates regularly returning more than 70 per cent of the vote.
Secondly, CCM is in charge of the country, its economy and its social life in ways very few parties have replicated in Africa. It also, through a series of committees, maintains tight control over the ambitions of politicians. Because it is such a powerful party, it is able to enforce defeat and force candidates to make way for others.
IN RWANDA AND UGANDA, THE RWANDA Patriotic Front and President Kagame and in the National Resistance Movement and President Museveni respectively, have such a tight grip on their countries that it is some matter of debate whether elections in those countries are open contests.
Many Kenyans would like to see the same kind of order and discipline here. And down that road lies the fate of dictatorship.
Speaking at one of the peace rallies in the Rift Valley on Friday, Agriculture minister William Ruto said there was something fundamentally wrong with Kenyan politics because every election year Kenyans massacred each other. The solution, he suggested, lay in a new constitution so that elections cease to be tribal contests and become a competition of policies.
It is possible that if the political class is afflicted by an epidemic of altruistic goodwill and patriotism and if constitutional review does not become an opportunity to fight the 2012 battles, then a new constitution might save Kenyan democracy.
But if the politicians behave true to form and violence recurs, then the country will either become a complete basket case — or a “saviour” in the form of an individual or group will emerge to “restore order,” to be met with cheers in the streets, and the Kenyan democratic experiment will be dead.
In my current pessimistic frame of mind, I think the latter is more likely than the former.
Imagine that your grandfather employed five people to work for him. Assume, for the sake of argument, that he was a good man who took care of his workers on the job and in retirement. Many of them retired and were entitled to a pension, which he was happy to pay. But rather than taking out insurance or putting them on a scheme, he paid their pension from his salary.
He passed on five pensioners and five serving employees to your father, who continued his father’s policy of charging their pension and salary on his own salary. Now your father has kicked the big bucket and has handed 14 pensioners (one has died) — aged but in sprightly health — and five workers. The pension bill is half of the wage bill and the two combined are 80 per cent of salary. What do you do (short of bumping off the pensioners and firing the workers)?
That is the same foolish policy the government of Kenya pursues. It pays pensioners from the budget and its bill has exceeded Sh20 billion a year — and growing fast. Very soon the pension bill will be one of the biggest items on the budget. What will it do then? What is wrong with civil servants saving for their own retirement, like the rest of us do?
Mutuma Mathiu is the Sunday Nation’s managing editor.
Commentary (by Sunday Standard team) - Grand coalition under siege
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143985569&cid=4&PHPSESSID=00ecb2ae16e1e4a026ef7f0e19ee3396
Published on April 27, 2008, 12:00 am
By Sunday Standard Team
Top three politicians — President Mwai Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka — are under siege for different reasons.
On the other hand, despite their silent and overt battles, the nation looks upon them to deliver particularly on four key areas: Resettlement of the displaced; a new constitution within a year; land reforms; and redressing historical injustices.
But first they must have a working, not warring Grand Coalition, which going by the protocol wars in last week’s three-day tour of the Rift Valley, could be getting trickier.
Kibaki, who leads the Party of National Unity, which has deep roots in central Kenya where the majority of the displaced originally hailed, is under pressure from his own people. They look upon him, armed with the instruments of government to resettle them.
He also has the onerous task of re-inventing himself, following the mud thrown at him by the disputed election, to vacate office at 2012 proud of his legacy.
Raila is in Government but not everyone is happy to have him around. He has the gargantuan task of "supervising and co-ordinating’’ ministers and their work. But even the President is not keen to show the nation the way; is he senior or junior to Kalonzo.
His supporters believe he has lost out in the power sharing accord. Though in Government, some still want to see his ‘rebellious’ streak, particularly on land and resettlement. He too, like them wants inter-communal reconciliation to take precedence.
Different language
But the President wants it done immediately under the watch of the police and other security agencies. Kibaki’s troops are not talking the same language as Raila’s allies – and again they are in one Government!
Raila, too, has the eye on the presidency which he feels was his for the taking, and so he has to spread his tentacles outside ODM without looking like he has one leg out.
But serving the interests of ODM, keeping Kibaki-Kalonzo in check, and curving out the image of a presidential material, might not just be easy to juggle. That is what the events of the last few weeks have shown. He is under siege within and outside ODM.
Kalonzo is just beginning to taste the bitter fruit of Kibaki succession, coming in the form of confusion over who precedes who in matters protocol.
At his Ukambani stronghold, opponents are asking questions if it was worth throwing himself up at Kibaki in exchange for three Cabinet positions. Then there is Water Minister Charity Ngilu and Kilome MP John Harun Mwau, abrasive and resilient, keeping the VP busy fighting the fires at the regional level.
Kalonzo still also has to work with Kibaki without appearing to be subservient to his political interests, and therefore putting himself in the line of fire targeting at the President. As he juggles all these, he still has to keep the eye on the presidency.
Last year, Kalonzo came out a distant third, there was nothing much to talk about the miracle he had promised.
It is the story of three men and the silent war playing out among them. To their credit, they each have vicious supporters.
Kibaki can count on the cast in the Cabinet from central Kenya, especially Mr Uhuru Kenyatta’s Kanu and Kalonzo’s ODM-Kenya.
Kibaki facing biggest test
Raila has the Pentagon squad –youthful, and energetic. For now it is a Kibaki-Kalonzo-Uhuru axis against Raila.
As things stand Kibaki is just beginning to face his biggest test.
Resettling the tens of thousands of people displaced in post-election violence is an issue on which the President may not count much on his coalition partners to help him with.
Even some members of the coalition who accompanied him in his three-day tour of the Rift Valley believe resettling the displaced is the President’s headache. They will at best lend only cosmetic support and keep him company.
In Central Province, the President is under pressure to resettle members of his community who were displaced in the violence that erupted in far-flung lands over the December polls.
In the Rift Valley, MPs are equally under pressure to satisfy the demands of constituents who want the land ownership issue, which has been simmering for ages, resolved.
The MPs from this region, including Cabinet ministers, say it is too risky to ask for the victims of violence to be resettled unconditionally.
The President on the other hand, together with MPs from the Rift Valley, "want resettlement yesterday.’’ Most of the over 100,000 people living in tents and relying on food handouts fear returning home until their security is guaranteed.
The Government has responded to the fears of the displaced by putting up more police stations across Rift Valley.
In January, Internal Security minister George Saitoti said 32 police stations would be set up to ensure security once displaced people return to their homes. He said the stations would be built in areas that were worst hit by post-election violence.
But Eldoret North MP William Ruto told the presidential rallies the police stations could only supplement, not guarantee the safety of the displaced. He wants the country to first get to the root cause of the perennial clashes.
Saitoti said the Government would ensure people who participated in post-election violence are arrested and charged.
Observers say police cannot restore peace and security in this kind of conflict.
In an interview published elsewhere in this paper today, US Ambassador in Kenya Michael Ranneberger said police would not do in resettling of the displaced. While he shared the President’s position that the resettlement could not wait, the ambassador said the displaced could only return if it is safe to do so.
"You do not achieve that by building police stations. People have to reconcile," the ambassador said.
He called for the involvement of elders in the reconciliation and talked of the need to convince all parties to the conflict that there would be benefits for all when people are resettled.
The protocol war may not end soon, and even if it does, the Kibaki-Raila catfights may continue. On June 11 five parliamentary by-elections take off, and each will have to go his way to try and bolster the numerical strength of their parties.
For now ODM is ahead of PNU by about five seats. It will be another test for the Grand Coalition, just as the pending business of uniting the country and tackling ethnicity and governance issues.
Published on April 27, 2008, 12:00 am
By Sunday Standard Team
Top three politicians — President Mwai Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka — are under siege for different reasons.
On the other hand, despite their silent and overt battles, the nation looks upon them to deliver particularly on four key areas: Resettlement of the displaced; a new constitution within a year; land reforms; and redressing historical injustices.
But first they must have a working, not warring Grand Coalition, which going by the protocol wars in last week’s three-day tour of the Rift Valley, could be getting trickier.
Kibaki, who leads the Party of National Unity, which has deep roots in central Kenya where the majority of the displaced originally hailed, is under pressure from his own people. They look upon him, armed with the instruments of government to resettle them.
He also has the onerous task of re-inventing himself, following the mud thrown at him by the disputed election, to vacate office at 2012 proud of his legacy.
Raila is in Government but not everyone is happy to have him around. He has the gargantuan task of "supervising and co-ordinating’’ ministers and their work. But even the President is not keen to show the nation the way; is he senior or junior to Kalonzo.
His supporters believe he has lost out in the power sharing accord. Though in Government, some still want to see his ‘rebellious’ streak, particularly on land and resettlement. He too, like them wants inter-communal reconciliation to take precedence.
Different language
But the President wants it done immediately under the watch of the police and other security agencies. Kibaki’s troops are not talking the same language as Raila’s allies – and again they are in one Government!
Raila, too, has the eye on the presidency which he feels was his for the taking, and so he has to spread his tentacles outside ODM without looking like he has one leg out.
But serving the interests of ODM, keeping Kibaki-Kalonzo in check, and curving out the image of a presidential material, might not just be easy to juggle. That is what the events of the last few weeks have shown. He is under siege within and outside ODM.
Kalonzo is just beginning to taste the bitter fruit of Kibaki succession, coming in the form of confusion over who precedes who in matters protocol.
At his Ukambani stronghold, opponents are asking questions if it was worth throwing himself up at Kibaki in exchange for three Cabinet positions. Then there is Water Minister Charity Ngilu and Kilome MP John Harun Mwau, abrasive and resilient, keeping the VP busy fighting the fires at the regional level.
Kalonzo still also has to work with Kibaki without appearing to be subservient to his political interests, and therefore putting himself in the line of fire targeting at the President. As he juggles all these, he still has to keep the eye on the presidency.
Last year, Kalonzo came out a distant third, there was nothing much to talk about the miracle he had promised.
It is the story of three men and the silent war playing out among them. To their credit, they each have vicious supporters.
Kibaki can count on the cast in the Cabinet from central Kenya, especially Mr Uhuru Kenyatta’s Kanu and Kalonzo’s ODM-Kenya.
Kibaki facing biggest test
Raila has the Pentagon squad –youthful, and energetic. For now it is a Kibaki-Kalonzo-Uhuru axis against Raila.
As things stand Kibaki is just beginning to face his biggest test.
Resettling the tens of thousands of people displaced in post-election violence is an issue on which the President may not count much on his coalition partners to help him with.
Even some members of the coalition who accompanied him in his three-day tour of the Rift Valley believe resettling the displaced is the President’s headache. They will at best lend only cosmetic support and keep him company.
In Central Province, the President is under pressure to resettle members of his community who were displaced in the violence that erupted in far-flung lands over the December polls.
In the Rift Valley, MPs are equally under pressure to satisfy the demands of constituents who want the land ownership issue, which has been simmering for ages, resolved.
The MPs from this region, including Cabinet ministers, say it is too risky to ask for the victims of violence to be resettled unconditionally.
The President on the other hand, together with MPs from the Rift Valley, "want resettlement yesterday.’’ Most of the over 100,000 people living in tents and relying on food handouts fear returning home until their security is guaranteed.
The Government has responded to the fears of the displaced by putting up more police stations across Rift Valley.
In January, Internal Security minister George Saitoti said 32 police stations would be set up to ensure security once displaced people return to their homes. He said the stations would be built in areas that were worst hit by post-election violence.
But Eldoret North MP William Ruto told the presidential rallies the police stations could only supplement, not guarantee the safety of the displaced. He wants the country to first get to the root cause of the perennial clashes.
Saitoti said the Government would ensure people who participated in post-election violence are arrested and charged.
Observers say police cannot restore peace and security in this kind of conflict.
In an interview published elsewhere in this paper today, US Ambassador in Kenya Michael Ranneberger said police would not do in resettling of the displaced. While he shared the President’s position that the resettlement could not wait, the ambassador said the displaced could only return if it is safe to do so.
"You do not achieve that by building police stations. People have to reconcile," the ambassador said.
He called for the involvement of elders in the reconciliation and talked of the need to convince all parties to the conflict that there would be benefits for all when people are resettled.
The protocol war may not end soon, and even if it does, the Kibaki-Raila catfights may continue. On June 11 five parliamentary by-elections take off, and each will have to go his way to try and bolster the numerical strength of their parties.
For now ODM is ahead of PNU by about five seats. It will be another test for the Grand Coalition, just as the pending business of uniting the country and tackling ethnicity and governance issues.
Saturday, 26 April 2008
Friday, 25 April 2008
Saturday, 19 April 2008
Friday, 18 April 2008
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Monday, 14 April 2008
Friday, 11 April 2008
Commentary (by Lucy Oriang') - It’s time to end the madness and demand our country back
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=120895
Story by LUCY ORIANG’
Publication Date: 4/11/2008
THERE ARE TOO MANY noisemakers running riot among us — and this at a time when Kenyans need peace and quiet to search their souls and come up with a new way of coexisting. We would ignore them if their careless words and actions were not the symptoms of a deep-seated problem.
Either they know something we do not, or they are enemies of the State and should be put where they belong: behind bars. The mystery is why the prefects — also known as principals for purposes of the national accord — appear unable or reluctant to put an end to the nonsense.
If we can establish the reason, we may get to the root of the burning question: Why is Kenya still in the woods when we have a coalition agreement that, unlike other memorandums of understanding, was signed in full view of the public?
That accord is very precise and reasonable in its key provisions. It may have been achieved by coercion as much as persuasion, but it is a good blueprint for setting the country on the path to a new understanding of democracy.
Yet the Party of National Unity and the Orange Democratic Movement are playing politics as usual, and the men in charge give the impression that they have lost control of the peace and reconciliation process, and that they are too helpless to give us back our country. It is a scary thought.
Even prefects in primary school enjoy considerable influence. They may not have the authority to punish anyone, but they can book culprits, and just the threat is often enough to rein in those who refuse to stop disturbing others.
The noisemakers know authority when they see it, and they understand that there will be a price to pay if they persist in disrupting the peace.
There are only two men, President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga, who have the power to shape the direction Kenya takes. They both assure us of their commitment to striking a deal on a Cabinet that will serve Kenya well rather than the other way round.
Yet we have all manner of impostors trying to butt into a critical situation. They are not only making it worse, but there is a speaking silence from the men in charge.
There have been two major assaults on the peace process. The first comes from the threat of violence if ODM does not get its way. It came to pass among riotous youths in Kibera and Kisumu, who have made a sport of destroying everything in sight. They seem to take special pleasure in trying to uproot the railway line.
The greater danger lies in copycat riots, and tensions are already being reported to the west.
That they end up suffering the greater loss does not seem to matter. Nor does the fact that none of the violence has changed either their circumstances or the dimensions of the problem.
THE POOR ARE EASILY DISPENSED with and quickly forgotten. Every now and then, we suffer an attack of conscience over the internally displaced. But then lethargy sets in and we train our eyes on Harambee House, which never fails to disappoint.
The thing with terror tactics is that you can apply them only so often. The other camp soon anticipates your moves and comes up with an effective counter-attack. There were riot police camped strategically on Ngong Road, a good two days or so before the Kibera riots. It is that easy to read the minds of professional protesters.
The other group of rabble-rousers comprises ministers, MPs and other minor politicians who constantly hold press conferences and issue statements that are irrelevant at best, and suicidal at worst.
What was the thinking in the Party of National Unity parliamentary group when it declared that it was ready to stand by their man even if he broke up Parliament and called a fresh election?
I stand to be corrected, but would he not be deemed to have served two terms and thus technically out of contention? The Tenth Parliament will have run its course, even at a mere couple of months in office. We should be so lucky!
Bravado tactics — whether running battles in the streets or useless and unsolicited information from irrelevant politicians — will not help this country get out of the quagmire.
President Kibaki and Mr Odinga need to reclaim their authority and put an end to the sideshows and arm-twisting that are distracting us from the task at hand.
To do this, they have to demonstrate that they are men of steel. That metal is hard and strong. But it is also very flexible, and is used to reinforce superstructures such as the spectacular bridges of the developed countries.
History has placed these two men in the prime position of undoing the wrong that has passed in Kenya’s politics. It is a challenge they play around with at their own peril.
They will not accomplish their mission as long as they cosy up to the hardcore elements in their camps.
Take a cold, hard look at this nation, gentlemen, and make a firm decision on what you want your legacy to be. Kenyans cannot live in limbo for much longer, and too many vested interests and unmet expectations can only lead to an explosion.
Three-and-a-half months of madness are enough.
Story by LUCY ORIANG’
Publication Date: 4/11/2008
THERE ARE TOO MANY noisemakers running riot among us — and this at a time when Kenyans need peace and quiet to search their souls and come up with a new way of coexisting. We would ignore them if their careless words and actions were not the symptoms of a deep-seated problem.
Either they know something we do not, or they are enemies of the State and should be put where they belong: behind bars. The mystery is why the prefects — also known as principals for purposes of the national accord — appear unable or reluctant to put an end to the nonsense.
If we can establish the reason, we may get to the root of the burning question: Why is Kenya still in the woods when we have a coalition agreement that, unlike other memorandums of understanding, was signed in full view of the public?
That accord is very precise and reasonable in its key provisions. It may have been achieved by coercion as much as persuasion, but it is a good blueprint for setting the country on the path to a new understanding of democracy.
Yet the Party of National Unity and the Orange Democratic Movement are playing politics as usual, and the men in charge give the impression that they have lost control of the peace and reconciliation process, and that they are too helpless to give us back our country. It is a scary thought.
Even prefects in primary school enjoy considerable influence. They may not have the authority to punish anyone, but they can book culprits, and just the threat is often enough to rein in those who refuse to stop disturbing others.
The noisemakers know authority when they see it, and they understand that there will be a price to pay if they persist in disrupting the peace.
There are only two men, President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga, who have the power to shape the direction Kenya takes. They both assure us of their commitment to striking a deal on a Cabinet that will serve Kenya well rather than the other way round.
Yet we have all manner of impostors trying to butt into a critical situation. They are not only making it worse, but there is a speaking silence from the men in charge.
There have been two major assaults on the peace process. The first comes from the threat of violence if ODM does not get its way. It came to pass among riotous youths in Kibera and Kisumu, who have made a sport of destroying everything in sight. They seem to take special pleasure in trying to uproot the railway line.
The greater danger lies in copycat riots, and tensions are already being reported to the west.
That they end up suffering the greater loss does not seem to matter. Nor does the fact that none of the violence has changed either their circumstances or the dimensions of the problem.
THE POOR ARE EASILY DISPENSED with and quickly forgotten. Every now and then, we suffer an attack of conscience over the internally displaced. But then lethargy sets in and we train our eyes on Harambee House, which never fails to disappoint.
The thing with terror tactics is that you can apply them only so often. The other camp soon anticipates your moves and comes up with an effective counter-attack. There were riot police camped strategically on Ngong Road, a good two days or so before the Kibera riots. It is that easy to read the minds of professional protesters.
The other group of rabble-rousers comprises ministers, MPs and other minor politicians who constantly hold press conferences and issue statements that are irrelevant at best, and suicidal at worst.
What was the thinking in the Party of National Unity parliamentary group when it declared that it was ready to stand by their man even if he broke up Parliament and called a fresh election?
I stand to be corrected, but would he not be deemed to have served two terms and thus technically out of contention? The Tenth Parliament will have run its course, even at a mere couple of months in office. We should be so lucky!
Bravado tactics — whether running battles in the streets or useless and unsolicited information from irrelevant politicians — will not help this country get out of the quagmire.
President Kibaki and Mr Odinga need to reclaim their authority and put an end to the sideshows and arm-twisting that are distracting us from the task at hand.
To do this, they have to demonstrate that they are men of steel. That metal is hard and strong. But it is also very flexible, and is used to reinforce superstructures such as the spectacular bridges of the developed countries.
History has placed these two men in the prime position of undoing the wrong that has passed in Kenya’s politics. It is a challenge they play around with at their own peril.
They will not accomplish their mission as long as they cosy up to the hardcore elements in their camps.
Take a cold, hard look at this nation, gentlemen, and make a firm decision on what you want your legacy to be. Kenyans cannot live in limbo for much longer, and too many vested interests and unmet expectations can only lead to an explosion.
Three-and-a-half months of madness are enough.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Commentary (by Nancy Mburu) - Why we must all join the murky world of politicians
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/columnists/?id=1143984498&cid=190
Published on April 9, 2008, 12:00 am
By Nancy Mburu
"My people perish for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)
WE can juxtapose this Biblical verse with the age-old saying that politics is a dirty game. But the dirt has rubbed off on us. Or why else are we in this situation?
Blame it on our blind trust, naÔvetÈ and hero-worship.
We, the people, did not want to get into the murky waters with power-hungry sharks, so we shunned politics. We were right, given the viciousness with which the power struggle played itself out, for instance, in last year’s General Election.
It wasn’t just the presidential poll results that were a problem: We saw vicious intra-party violence erupt during party nominations, where some aspirants even threatened electoral officials with guns.
Women aspirants were particularly unlucky for they were brutalised and humiliated, in an attempt to coerce them to forgo their democratic rights. One was gunned down in Nairobi under mysterious circumstances. This gets me thinking: Why weren’t the hooligans who disrespected women ever prosecuted?
We saw how party stalwarts fought over the nomination slots. Some individuals nominated themselves, others forwarded parallel lists and yet others arm-twisted their party officials to give them nomination slots. Later, two new Members of Parliament were also murdered in unclear circumstances.
And even now, our overstretched courts are inundated with the highest number of election petitions seen in the country’s history.
With this degree of violence, is it any wonder that we recoil at the thought of joining politics? We are better off hanging out here as the masses. It is much safer and more dignified, or so we think.
What we do not realise is that politics determines our very existence. It determines whether we enjoy peace, whether we have good roads, whether our children go to school, whether our homes have safe drinking water, whether we have food, whether we have security and generally good governance. It is because of politics that some of our brothers and sisters are still living in displacement camps.
There is good and bad politics. We have only been exposed to the bad, where the actors are adept at seeking cheap publicity by bashing each other. Our politicians act all sanctimonious, shifting blame to their rivals, as exemplified in the Cabinet stalemate. They clash in private, and then come out publicly to blame each other over private deals we are never privy to.
What Kenyans were nor told
When President Kibaki and Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga exchanged smiles and publicly signed the power sharing deal, they did not tell us about the fine print. They did not tell us there was to be portfolio balance or whether civil service jobs were part of the political deal. They did not tell us about ‘powerful’ and ‘weak’ ministries.
‘Ordinary Kenyans’ know something is terribly wrong, but we are groping in the dark as to precisely what. PNU and ODM closed ranks and came up with a bloated Cabinet of 40, with an equal number of assistant ministers, despite much public disaffection. The two sides now want public sympathy because they have failed to agree on how to share the spoils, yet they are the direct beneficiaries.
The ordinary people are not informed on issues regarding good governance. The civil society and the disgraced Electoral Commission have not conducted intense civic education to inform the public. ECK is only seen to work when urging voters to register in big numbers, irrespective of whether the latter eventually elect bad leaders. They never tell the common man and woman what to look for in leaders, because casting the ballot is itself not enough.
Ordinary Kenyans must take deliberate steps to arm themselves with knowledge. They now know they cannot entrust the country to politicians alone.
Our leaders belong to the old school, where they listen more to their hardliners and members of their ‘Kitchen Cabinets’, than the people. They are unable to break free and reason as individuals.
We need alternative leadership and a strong citizens’ movement. Pushing for comprehensive constitutional review is a starting point as it will give us water-tight institutions independent of each other. We must know the nitty-gritty of every political decision and deal, since they affect all of us. If we continue to wallow in ignorance, we shall perish, as we nearly did after the elections.
An informed people are an empowered people.
-The writer (nwanjiku@eastandard.net) is The Standard’s Chief Sub-editor, Weekend Editions
Published on April 9, 2008, 12:00 am
By Nancy Mburu
"My people perish for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)
WE can juxtapose this Biblical verse with the age-old saying that politics is a dirty game. But the dirt has rubbed off on us. Or why else are we in this situation?
Blame it on our blind trust, naÔvetÈ and hero-worship.
We, the people, did not want to get into the murky waters with power-hungry sharks, so we shunned politics. We were right, given the viciousness with which the power struggle played itself out, for instance, in last year’s General Election.
It wasn’t just the presidential poll results that were a problem: We saw vicious intra-party violence erupt during party nominations, where some aspirants even threatened electoral officials with guns.
Women aspirants were particularly unlucky for they were brutalised and humiliated, in an attempt to coerce them to forgo their democratic rights. One was gunned down in Nairobi under mysterious circumstances. This gets me thinking: Why weren’t the hooligans who disrespected women ever prosecuted?
We saw how party stalwarts fought over the nomination slots. Some individuals nominated themselves, others forwarded parallel lists and yet others arm-twisted their party officials to give them nomination slots. Later, two new Members of Parliament were also murdered in unclear circumstances.
And even now, our overstretched courts are inundated with the highest number of election petitions seen in the country’s history.
With this degree of violence, is it any wonder that we recoil at the thought of joining politics? We are better off hanging out here as the masses. It is much safer and more dignified, or so we think.
What we do not realise is that politics determines our very existence. It determines whether we enjoy peace, whether we have good roads, whether our children go to school, whether our homes have safe drinking water, whether we have food, whether we have security and generally good governance. It is because of politics that some of our brothers and sisters are still living in displacement camps.
There is good and bad politics. We have only been exposed to the bad, where the actors are adept at seeking cheap publicity by bashing each other. Our politicians act all sanctimonious, shifting blame to their rivals, as exemplified in the Cabinet stalemate. They clash in private, and then come out publicly to blame each other over private deals we are never privy to.
What Kenyans were nor told
When President Kibaki and Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga exchanged smiles and publicly signed the power sharing deal, they did not tell us about the fine print. They did not tell us there was to be portfolio balance or whether civil service jobs were part of the political deal. They did not tell us about ‘powerful’ and ‘weak’ ministries.
‘Ordinary Kenyans’ know something is terribly wrong, but we are groping in the dark as to precisely what. PNU and ODM closed ranks and came up with a bloated Cabinet of 40, with an equal number of assistant ministers, despite much public disaffection. The two sides now want public sympathy because they have failed to agree on how to share the spoils, yet they are the direct beneficiaries.
The ordinary people are not informed on issues regarding good governance. The civil society and the disgraced Electoral Commission have not conducted intense civic education to inform the public. ECK is only seen to work when urging voters to register in big numbers, irrespective of whether the latter eventually elect bad leaders. They never tell the common man and woman what to look for in leaders, because casting the ballot is itself not enough.
Ordinary Kenyans must take deliberate steps to arm themselves with knowledge. They now know they cannot entrust the country to politicians alone.
Our leaders belong to the old school, where they listen more to their hardliners and members of their ‘Kitchen Cabinets’, than the people. They are unable to break free and reason as individuals.
We need alternative leadership and a strong citizens’ movement. Pushing for comprehensive constitutional review is a starting point as it will give us water-tight institutions independent of each other. We must know the nitty-gritty of every political decision and deal, since they affect all of us. If we continue to wallow in ignorance, we shall perish, as we nearly did after the elections.
An informed people are an empowered people.
-The writer (nwanjiku@eastandard.net) is The Standard’s Chief Sub-editor, Weekend Editions
Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Commentary (by Kivutha Kibwana) - There can't be two centres of power in any country
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=120753
Story by KIVUTHA KIBWANA
Publication Date: 4/9/2008
THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE current impasse in Kenya are both political and legal. An extremely closely contested presidential election presented the opportunity for rejection of Kenya’s first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system by the opposition.
Widespread post-election violence was deployed to countermand the disputed electoral verdict.
In exchange for accepting the presidential results, ODM pitched for “real power-sharing”. The Accord of February 28 captured the raison d’etre of power-sharing by stating:
“Given the current situation, neither side can realistically govern the country without the other. There must be real power-sharing to move the country forward and begin the healing and reconciliation process.”
The proximate legal tussle concerns the interpretation of Section 3(3) of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, 2008 (henceforth the Accord Act or law) which provides: “The composition of the coalition government shall at all times reflect relative strength of the respective parties, and shall at all times take into account the principle of portfolio balance.”
Second, what is the nature of the grand coalition?
Third, does ultimate executive authority lie with the President or is it shared between the President and Prime Minister?”
The 2008 Constitutional Amendment (Articles 3 and 4) and the Accord Act (Sections 3, 4, and 5) define the coalition government largely in terms of the new offices created to establish it and the manner of sharing the coalition government portfolios.
This is the case, notwithstanding a caveat in the coalition law which specifies: “(The Agreement) is not about creating positions to reward individuals.”
Several questions may be posed. Since ODM entered into a coalition agreement with Government/PNU partner, is it realistic to demand the demolition of such a government to pave the way for the constitution of a totally fresh government? Wouldn’t that radical approach have been the subject of negotiation?
Will the coalition government be one or two parallel governments? Will the two segments in government continue to actively compete or will they collaborate as provided for under the Accord?
If the two sides cannot serve as one government, obviously the life of the coalition will be fitful and short.
The saga surrounding the establishment of the coalition government seems to suggest that two centres of power are being created around the President and the Prime Minister.
No one country can be legally run by two governments. The coalition government Kenyans expected is one through which political hostilities would cease and the collective talent and energy of the entire political class used to reconstruct Kenya.
The notion that some ministries are inferior to others is alien to the Constitution. Under Article 18 of the Constitution, the President assigns to the Vice-President and the other ministers responsibility for any business of Government, including the administration of any department.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT provides that the Prime Minister and deputy prime ministers shall be ministers whose principal constitutional mandate is to aid and advise the President.
Article 24 of the Constitution vests the power of constituting and abolishing offices of the Republic of Kenya and making appointments and terminating such appointments in the President.
Under the negotiated law, the President has conceded that the Prime Minister will nominate half of the Cabinet. Had the interpretation been different, the negotiators would have produced a schedule through which ministries would have been shared up-front.
Portfolio balance within the coalition law relates to Cabinet positions and not the public bureaucracy including diplomatic and parastatal positions.
Sharing of the above positions would be a major departure from current constitutional and legal provisions. This eventuality would have required specific agreement through the Accord law.
Part 3 of the Constitution on executive powers was not amended or altered by the 2008 constitutional amendment. Article 23 (1) states: “The executive authority of the Government of Kenya shall vest in the President and, subject to this Constitution, may be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him.”
One of the executive functions is the authority to co-ordinate and supervise the execution of the functions and affairs of the government, including those of ministries assigned to the Prime Minister through Section 4 (1)(a) of the Accord Act.
This co-ordination and supervisory power is delegated authority to the Prime Minister.
Under Section 4 (1) (c) of the Accord law, the Prime Minister can be assigned other duties by the President. This means the President is still the sole Head of Government as well as Head of State.
Two possibilities exist through which Kenya’s political Gordian knot can be untied. The two principal negotiators can, within a few days, form a working Cabinet as provided for in the Constitution and the Accord Act.
Alternatively, the two principals can declare the coalition dissolved.
Under both the Accord and the Constitution, the coalition government must be based on the principle that the President holds ultimate executive authority and presides over one government. Only a comprehensive constitutional review will alter this position.
Prof Kibwana is a former minister for Lands.
Story by KIVUTHA KIBWANA
Publication Date: 4/9/2008
THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE current impasse in Kenya are both political and legal. An extremely closely contested presidential election presented the opportunity for rejection of Kenya’s first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system by the opposition.
Widespread post-election violence was deployed to countermand the disputed electoral verdict.
In exchange for accepting the presidential results, ODM pitched for “real power-sharing”. The Accord of February 28 captured the raison d’etre of power-sharing by stating:
“Given the current situation, neither side can realistically govern the country without the other. There must be real power-sharing to move the country forward and begin the healing and reconciliation process.”
The proximate legal tussle concerns the interpretation of Section 3(3) of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, 2008 (henceforth the Accord Act or law) which provides: “The composition of the coalition government shall at all times reflect relative strength of the respective parties, and shall at all times take into account the principle of portfolio balance.”
Second, what is the nature of the grand coalition?
Third, does ultimate executive authority lie with the President or is it shared between the President and Prime Minister?”
The 2008 Constitutional Amendment (Articles 3 and 4) and the Accord Act (Sections 3, 4, and 5) define the coalition government largely in terms of the new offices created to establish it and the manner of sharing the coalition government portfolios.
This is the case, notwithstanding a caveat in the coalition law which specifies: “(The Agreement) is not about creating positions to reward individuals.”
Several questions may be posed. Since ODM entered into a coalition agreement with Government/PNU partner, is it realistic to demand the demolition of such a government to pave the way for the constitution of a totally fresh government? Wouldn’t that radical approach have been the subject of negotiation?
Will the coalition government be one or two parallel governments? Will the two segments in government continue to actively compete or will they collaborate as provided for under the Accord?
If the two sides cannot serve as one government, obviously the life of the coalition will be fitful and short.
The saga surrounding the establishment of the coalition government seems to suggest that two centres of power are being created around the President and the Prime Minister.
No one country can be legally run by two governments. The coalition government Kenyans expected is one through which political hostilities would cease and the collective talent and energy of the entire political class used to reconstruct Kenya.
The notion that some ministries are inferior to others is alien to the Constitution. Under Article 18 of the Constitution, the President assigns to the Vice-President and the other ministers responsibility for any business of Government, including the administration of any department.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT provides that the Prime Minister and deputy prime ministers shall be ministers whose principal constitutional mandate is to aid and advise the President.
Article 24 of the Constitution vests the power of constituting and abolishing offices of the Republic of Kenya and making appointments and terminating such appointments in the President.
Under the negotiated law, the President has conceded that the Prime Minister will nominate half of the Cabinet. Had the interpretation been different, the negotiators would have produced a schedule through which ministries would have been shared up-front.
Portfolio balance within the coalition law relates to Cabinet positions and not the public bureaucracy including diplomatic and parastatal positions.
Sharing of the above positions would be a major departure from current constitutional and legal provisions. This eventuality would have required specific agreement through the Accord law.
Part 3 of the Constitution on executive powers was not amended or altered by the 2008 constitutional amendment. Article 23 (1) states: “The executive authority of the Government of Kenya shall vest in the President and, subject to this Constitution, may be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him.”
One of the executive functions is the authority to co-ordinate and supervise the execution of the functions and affairs of the government, including those of ministries assigned to the Prime Minister through Section 4 (1)(a) of the Accord Act.
This co-ordination and supervisory power is delegated authority to the Prime Minister.
Under Section 4 (1) (c) of the Accord law, the Prime Minister can be assigned other duties by the President. This means the President is still the sole Head of Government as well as Head of State.
Two possibilities exist through which Kenya’s political Gordian knot can be untied. The two principal negotiators can, within a few days, form a working Cabinet as provided for in the Constitution and the Accord Act.
Alternatively, the two principals can declare the coalition dissolved.
Under both the Accord and the Constitution, the coalition government must be based on the principle that the President holds ultimate executive authority and presides over one government. Only a comprehensive constitutional review will alter this position.
Prof Kibwana is a former minister for Lands.
Tuesday, 08 April 2008
Commentary (by Robert Shaw) - In all ways, Kenya is facing very difficult times ahead
Ref: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=120709
Story by ROBERT SHAW
Publication Date: 4/8/2008
FELLOW KENYANS, WE ARE being buffeted by a second crisis. No, I am not talking about the post-election fallout and turmoil and the continuing standoff regarding who gets what piece of the action.
I am talking about the breathtaking spiralling cost of living, eating and just existing and how it is fast overtaking more and more people’s ability to manage and to feed their families.
Kenya has more than half its population living on the wrong side of the poverty line and is in the top 10 league of the most unequal societies in the world.
Much of the 1990s and early part of this decade were lost years in terms of economic progress.
Add onto that the endemic corruption, misuse of power and disproportionate economic progress and gains of the last few years. The latter is most important.
Tourism and horticulture may have raced ahead, but some vital economic and social sectors that millions of Kenyans depend on such as sugar, pyrethrum and cotton have languished.
NOW, LET’S ADD ON TO THAT THE present and get closer to the nub of the crisis. Regardless of the reasons behind it, the hard fact is that Kenya needs to import a large slice of its staple foods: two thirds of its wheat; three quarters of its rice; over a third of its sugar; much of its edible oils, and so on.
In a bad year, and this is likely to be one, we will also have a strategic deficit of maize and will need to import, especially in the third quarter of the year.
There was a time, not long ago, when several people, myself included, advocated that we should not build up strategic reserves of maize but import domestic shortfalls because the former was exceedingly expensive.
Now all that is turned upside down. Consumption of food is outstripping supply and that is not a temporary blip. World food stocks are at the lowest they have been for years.
This is for a number of well-documented reasons: increasing consumption particularly in the fast growing economies of China and India; poor harvests, and the diversion of some of these products into making biofuel.
Prices are literally going through the roof. Wheat prices have doubled in a year, and on average, world food prices have increased by some 40 per cent this year alone.
The price of locally grown maize is rising by the week and is in the region of Sh1,400 per 90-kilo bag. It will not be long until it reaches the world price which is now in excess of Sh2,000.
Indeed, countries are now imposing restrictions or taxes on food exports in order to safeguard or preserve their domestic supplies.
There are very few food products that will be unaffected. If supply tightens and prices rise, one shifts to a cheaper food.
Demand for that product increases and prices rise accordingly.
Secondly, Kenya is in no position to buck the world trend because of the quantity of food it needs to import.
To round off the picture, there are three other factors: fertiliser prices, the post-election mayhem, and fuel prices.
As farmers are finding out, the former has doubled in less than a year. If one can afford it, all well and good. But many farmers can’t and are either cutting back on the acreage, or using less fertiliser.
EITHER WAY, WE END UP WITH REduced harvests. It is estimated that the main crop from our breadbasket in North Rift and Trans Nzioa will be at least 30 per cent less this year.
The second factor resulted in some of our crop being destroyed, reduced acreage under cultivation and delays in planting. It is an important negative cause but should be seen in the context of the other issues and not blamed solely for the price rises.
Thirdly there is the oil factor. Oil prices are now in excess of $100 a barrel, an all-time high even in real terms, and the supply and demand equation is such that we are unlikely to see much relief from that.
The trouble with oil price increases is that they affect literally everything that requires to be transported whether goods or people.
In conclusion, Kenya, and the world, is in the early stages of a price explosion. It has many ramifications. It will plunge more people into poverty.
It will have a negative effect on virtually all our social indicators, particularly in the nutrition and health arenas.
It will continue to result in serious social unrest as those prices bite and scarcities spread. It will test sorely the competence and capacity of government in reducing the impact and keeping social order.
Mr Shaw is a businessman operating in Nairobi.
Story by ROBERT SHAW
Publication Date: 4/8/2008
FELLOW KENYANS, WE ARE being buffeted by a second crisis. No, I am not talking about the post-election fallout and turmoil and the continuing standoff regarding who gets what piece of the action.
I am talking about the breathtaking spiralling cost of living, eating and just existing and how it is fast overtaking more and more people’s ability to manage and to feed their families.
Kenya has more than half its population living on the wrong side of the poverty line and is in the top 10 league of the most unequal societies in the world.
Much of the 1990s and early part of this decade were lost years in terms of economic progress.
Add onto that the endemic corruption, misuse of power and disproportionate economic progress and gains of the last few years. The latter is most important.
Tourism and horticulture may have raced ahead, but some vital economic and social sectors that millions of Kenyans depend on such as sugar, pyrethrum and cotton have languished.
NOW, LET’S ADD ON TO THAT THE present and get closer to the nub of the crisis. Regardless of the reasons behind it, the hard fact is that Kenya needs to import a large slice of its staple foods: two thirds of its wheat; three quarters of its rice; over a third of its sugar; much of its edible oils, and so on.
In a bad year, and this is likely to be one, we will also have a strategic deficit of maize and will need to import, especially in the third quarter of the year.
There was a time, not long ago, when several people, myself included, advocated that we should not build up strategic reserves of maize but import domestic shortfalls because the former was exceedingly expensive.
Now all that is turned upside down. Consumption of food is outstripping supply and that is not a temporary blip. World food stocks are at the lowest they have been for years.
This is for a number of well-documented reasons: increasing consumption particularly in the fast growing economies of China and India; poor harvests, and the diversion of some of these products into making biofuel.
Prices are literally going through the roof. Wheat prices have doubled in a year, and on average, world food prices have increased by some 40 per cent this year alone.
The price of locally grown maize is rising by the week and is in the region of Sh1,400 per 90-kilo bag. It will not be long until it reaches the world price which is now in excess of Sh2,000.
Indeed, countries are now imposing restrictions or taxes on food exports in order to safeguard or preserve their domestic supplies.
There are very few food products that will be unaffected. If supply tightens and prices rise, one shifts to a cheaper food.
Demand for that product increases and prices rise accordingly.
Secondly, Kenya is in no position to buck the world trend because of the quantity of food it needs to import.
To round off the picture, there are three other factors: fertiliser prices, the post-election mayhem, and fuel prices.
As farmers are finding out, the former has doubled in less than a year. If one can afford it, all well and good. But many farmers can’t and are either cutting back on the acreage, or using less fertiliser.
EITHER WAY, WE END UP WITH REduced harvests. It is estimated that the main crop from our breadbasket in North Rift and Trans Nzioa will be at least 30 per cent less this year.
The second factor resulted in some of our crop being destroyed, reduced acreage under cultivation and delays in planting. It is an important negative cause but should be seen in the context of the other issues and not blamed solely for the price rises.
Thirdly there is the oil factor. Oil prices are now in excess of $100 a barrel, an all-time high even in real terms, and the supply and demand equation is such that we are unlikely to see much relief from that.
The trouble with oil price increases is that they affect literally everything that requires to be transported whether goods or people.
In conclusion, Kenya, and the world, is in the early stages of a price explosion. It has many ramifications. It will plunge more people into poverty.
It will have a negative effect on virtually all our social indicators, particularly in the nutrition and health arenas.
It will continue to result in serious social unrest as those prices bite and scarcities spread. It will test sorely the competence and capacity of government in reducing the impact and keeping social order.
Mr Shaw is a businessman operating in Nairobi.
Monday, 07 April 2008
Sunday, 06 April 2008
Commentary (by Ali Mazrui) - Why the world looks at Kenya as the microcosm of Africa
Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/columnists/?id=1143984331&cid=190
Published on April 6, 2008, 12:00 am
By Ali Mazrui
After Kenya’s disastrous elections last year, the international community showed massive interest in having the crisis resolved.
But why was this so? Is Kenya unique in global context? What is special about Kenya in Africa? Is there something historically extraordinary about Kenya in the Black experience?
Kenya is part of the cradle of the human species. Human species originated in Eastern Africa; many fossils have been discovered in the Great Rift Valley. Since Kenya and Tanzania are probably where the human species originated, the two countries are probably also where many human institutions began to evolve.
About a thousand years ago, Kenya and Tanzania started developing what was destined to become Black Africa’s most successful indigenous language, Kiswahili. Within Africa’s own linguistic diversity, Kiswahili is the fastest growing language. Originating along the coast of Kenya and Tanzania, Kiswahili has now spread to Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and Malawi — among other countries.
Kenya is also unique within Africa. It was the first Black African country to follow the American example of waging a war of independence against long-established British colonial rule. The Americans did it from 1776; Kenyans did it from 1952.
Paradoxically, Kenya’s ‘George Washington’, Jomo Kenyatta, waged the war from behind bars. The British locked him up at the very beginning of the rebellion after a sham trial. But an imprisoned Kenyatta was a more potent political force than Kenyatta at large.
Thanks to the Mau Mau, Kenya became the first British colony, with a large white settler community, to win Black majority rule. It was the first British settler colony in Africa to get away from white ‘settlerdom’.
The Mau Mau struggle was Black Africa’s first successful war of liberation. And Mau Mau fighters were the most self-reliant of all major guerrilla movements of Africa since the Second World War. They fought without Soviet missiles or Chinese guns. All that they had were basic traditional instruments of warfare. The Mau Mau may have been militarily defeated, but it was a classic victory of the vanquished. It broke Britain’s imperial will.
Kenyatta, set another far-reaching and intriguing precedent. He set the grand precedent of Africa’s short memory of hate. The British imprisoned Kenyatta as a ‘leader unto darkness and death’. But he lived to be the country’s founding-president and, ironically, Kenya’s leading Anglophile. He even published a book, Suffering Without Bitterness, setting in motion a new tradition of Africa’s short memory of hate.
Subsequently, history witnessed Ian Smith’s transition from the architect of Southern Rhodesia’s 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which unleashed a war that cost thousands of African lives. Yet, Smith remained a free man in Black-ruled Zimbabwe and even sat as a bona fide Member of Parliament.
Nelson Mandela followed. He spent 27 of his best years in prison having been convicted by white courts. In the end, Mandela embarked upon an unbridled mission of racial reconciliation in South Africa — another illustration of Africans’ short memory of hate.
Kenya is an Indian Ocean power, which for so long acted as if it was an Atlantic power. The twin Atlantic pulls were Britain and the US. Kenya subordinated her Indian Ocean loyalties to her Atlantic friends.
Kenyan students
American aid to Kenya
In 1960 Kenya awakened John F Kennedy (then US president) to America’s responsibilities in Africa. In 1960-61, Tom Mboya successfully negotiated with Kennedy for the airlift of Kenyan students who had succeeded in getting admission to US universities but could not afford air tickets.
"Soapy" Williams, Gerhard Mennen Williams, articulated for the Kennedy Administration the principle of ‘Africa is for the Africans’. He had been intrigued by the Kenyan white settlers’ objection to the slogan of ‘Africa for Africans,’ and helped to set a trend in US of supporting Black aspirations in Africa.
As a young graduate student at Columbia University, I met Martin Luther King in New York City in 1961. We discussed Kenya, including Kenya’s second most celebrated son at that time, Mboya. It later deeply pained me that assassins’ bullets killed both King and Mboya.
Years later, former US president Jimmy Carter included Kenya in his strategy of a Rapid Deployment Force in defence of the oil routes and the Arabian and Persian oil reserves. After September 11, 2001, US president George Bush enlisted Kenya in the US ‘war on terrorism’.
The beginning of a US military presence in Kenya has been in the making as a result. Kenya is not yet a US military base but US naval ships have been stopping at Mombasa almost regularly.
One of the most controversial pro-Western moves by the post-colonial Kenyan government was the support given to the Israeli raid on a neighbouring African country: The Israeli Entebbe raid of July 1976. Israeli air force commandos raided Entebbe to free Jewish hostages caught in a Palestinian hijack of an Air France flight.
Sacrifice
Kenya facilitated both the Israeli approach to Entebbe and its exit. In addition to being a refuelling stopover, Nairobi provided medical facilities for the injured, rescued Israeli hostages. Saving Israel’s lives probably cost at least one hundred Uganda lives.
Kenya paid a price for its pro-Israeli orientation; the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi was subsequently bombed in 1980 by a pro-Palestinian Arab. Many Arabs had concluded that Kenya was not really neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Was Kenya supporting Israel or the US? We may never know for certain. But one measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it. If Kenya loved justice, and therefore facilitated the Entebbe raid, it was not cost-free. Lives of innocent Ugandan neighbours were sacrificed.
Kenya continues to be a regional focus in Eastern Africa. It is the largest economy in the sub-region. Until the last elections, it was the most stable state in the greater Horn of Africa. Until then, Kenya was also the closest East African country to genuine democratisation.
The misfortunes of the elections are probably the worst blow to Kenya since independence, but it stands a chance of healing. It may even recover its pre-eminence in pan-global affairs.
Published on April 6, 2008, 12:00 am
By Ali Mazrui
After Kenya’s disastrous elections last year, the international community showed massive interest in having the crisis resolved.
But why was this so? Is Kenya unique in global context? What is special about Kenya in Africa? Is there something historically extraordinary about Kenya in the Black experience?
Kenya is part of the cradle of the human species. Human species originated in Eastern Africa; many fossils have been discovered in the Great Rift Valley. Since Kenya and Tanzania are probably where the human species originated, the two countries are probably also where many human institutions began to evolve.
About a thousand years ago, Kenya and Tanzania started developing what was destined to become Black Africa’s most successful indigenous language, Kiswahili. Within Africa’s own linguistic diversity, Kiswahili is the fastest growing language. Originating along the coast of Kenya and Tanzania, Kiswahili has now spread to Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and Malawi — among other countries.
Kenya is also unique within Africa. It was the first Black African country to follow the American example of waging a war of independence against long-established British colonial rule. The Americans did it from 1776; Kenyans did it from 1952.
Paradoxically, Kenya’s ‘George Washington’, Jomo Kenyatta, waged the war from behind bars. The British locked him up at the very beginning of the rebellion after a sham trial. But an imprisoned Kenyatta was a more potent political force than Kenyatta at large.
Thanks to the Mau Mau, Kenya became the first British colony, with a large white settler community, to win Black majority rule. It was the first British settler colony in Africa to get away from white ‘settlerdom’.
The Mau Mau struggle was Black Africa’s first successful war of liberation. And Mau Mau fighters were the most self-reliant of all major guerrilla movements of Africa since the Second World War. They fought without Soviet missiles or Chinese guns. All that they had were basic traditional instruments of warfare. The Mau Mau may have been militarily defeated, but it was a classic victory of the vanquished. It broke Britain’s imperial will.
Kenyatta, set another far-reaching and intriguing precedent. He set the grand precedent of Africa’s short memory of hate. The British imprisoned Kenyatta as a ‘leader unto darkness and death’. But he lived to be the country’s founding-president and, ironically, Kenya’s leading Anglophile. He even published a book, Suffering Without Bitterness, setting in motion a new tradition of Africa’s short memory of hate.
Subsequently, history witnessed Ian Smith’s transition from the architect of Southern Rhodesia’s 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which unleashed a war that cost thousands of African lives. Yet, Smith remained a free man in Black-ruled Zimbabwe and even sat as a bona fide Member of Parliament.
Nelson Mandela followed. He spent 27 of his best years in prison having been convicted by white courts. In the end, Mandela embarked upon an unbridled mission of racial reconciliation in South Africa — another illustration of Africans’ short memory of hate.
Kenya is an Indian Ocean power, which for so long acted as if it was an Atlantic power. The twin Atlantic pulls were Britain and the US. Kenya subordinated her Indian Ocean loyalties to her Atlantic friends.
Kenyan students
American aid to Kenya
In 1960 Kenya awakened John F Kennedy (then US president) to America’s responsibilities in Africa. In 1960-61, Tom Mboya successfully negotiated with Kennedy for the airlift of Kenyan students who had succeeded in getting admission to US universities but could not afford air tickets.
"Soapy" Williams, Gerhard Mennen Williams, articulated for the Kennedy Administration the principle of ‘Africa is for the Africans’. He had been intrigued by the Kenyan white settlers’ objection to the slogan of ‘Africa for Africans,’ and helped to set a trend in US of supporting Black aspirations in Africa.
As a young graduate student at Columbia University, I met Martin Luther King in New York City in 1961. We discussed Kenya, including Kenya’s second most celebrated son at that time, Mboya. It later deeply pained me that assassins’ bullets killed both King and Mboya.
Years later, former US president Jimmy Carter included Kenya in his strategy of a Rapid Deployment Force in defence of the oil routes and the Arabian and Persian oil reserves. After September 11, 2001, US president George Bush enlisted Kenya in the US ‘war on terrorism’.
The beginning of a US military presence in Kenya has been in the making as a result. Kenya is not yet a US military base but US naval ships have been stopping at Mombasa almost regularly.
One of the most controversial pro-Western moves by the post-colonial Kenyan government was the support given to the Israeli raid on a neighbouring African country: The Israeli Entebbe raid of July 1976. Israeli air force commandos raided Entebbe to free Jewish hostages caught in a Palestinian hijack of an Air France flight.
Sacrifice
Kenya facilitated both the Israeli approach to Entebbe and its exit. In addition to being a refuelling stopover, Nairobi provided medical facilities for the injured, rescued Israeli hostages. Saving Israel’s lives probably cost at least one hundred Uganda lives.
Kenya paid a price for its pro-Israeli orientation; the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi was subsequently bombed in 1980 by a pro-Palestinian Arab. Many Arabs had concluded that Kenya was not really neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Was Kenya supporting Israel or the US? We may never know for certain. But one measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it. If Kenya loved justice, and therefore facilitated the Entebbe raid, it was not cost-free. Lives of innocent Ugandan neighbours were sacrificed.
Kenya continues to be a regional focus in Eastern Africa. It is the largest economy in the sub-region. Until the last elections, it was the most stable state in the greater Horn of Africa. Until then, Kenya was also the closest East African country to genuine democratisation.
The misfortunes of the elections are probably the worst blow to Kenya since independence, but it stands a chance of healing. It may even recover its pre-eminence in pan-global affairs.
Friday, 04 April 2008
Thursday, 03 April 2008
Wednesday, 02 April 2008
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