The wages of constitutional illiteracy

Some time last week I witnessed the limits of education. On a panel discussing something that the Government had done, was doing, was going to do, whatever, a panelist suggested that Kenya would benefit if the "opposition formed a shadow government", the same as existed in the 10th Parliament before the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution. therefore, she saw many benefits in the establishment of the office of the Leader of the Official Opposition as proposed by both the last Jubilee administration and the current Kenya Kwanza one. She, and many like-minded pundits, have given up on the constitutional arrangements we have made for the government and they seemingly have no interest in holding any of their elected politicians to account.

The reliance on magical thinking is distressing, but not surprising. It informs much of the public discourse on public administration and politics. We are susceptible to this kind of magical thinking: if I make this change, that has nothing to do with the underlying issues, I will improve my lot in life. It almost never is true. It almost always leads to more destructive outcomes.

The constitutional structure of the government is not that difficult to discern. It is a presidential system, with parliamentary vestiges no one thought would become a problem thirteen years after we promulgated the constitution. The president, deputy president, cabinet secretaries and attorney-general no longer sit in parliament; parliamentarians no longer sit in the cabinet; and the president can only appoint the chief justice and judges of the Supreme Court with the approval of parliament. Parliament is divided into the majority party and minority party who, collectively, are supposed to oversee the national executive and judiciary (also known as checks and balances). While it is expected that the majority party in parliament will be the president's and deputy president's party, under the current arrangement it is possible to have a divided government where the majority party controls parliament and the minority party holds the presidency.

As a consequence, the Official Opposition is an anachronism from the Westminster system that Kenya did away with on the 27th August, 2010. An Official Opposition is a vital part of a parliamentary system where the members of the executive are elected parliamentarians as well (save for the attorney-general, who is an ex officio member of parliament without a right to vote). An Official Opposition would choose, from among members of its Parliamentary Group, shadow ministers who would lead the questioning of members of the cabinet during Parliamentary Question Time (in the UK, they call it Prime Minister's Question Time).

What President Uhuru Kenyatta and, now, President William Ruto, did was to extend the vestiges of the Westminster system far beyond its utility for the purposes of the transition from the former constitution to the current one. As a result, the general public, including commentators and pundits, are under the impression that the government is still divided into a ruling party and official opposition, rather than the majority party and minority party. Therefore, few see nothing constitutionally untoward in the suggestion that the office of the Leader of the Official Opposition should be revived "in order to hold the government to account" rather than the majority and minority parties holding the executive branch to account as the constitution contemplates.

I am all for inclusion as a way of mediating political conflict; but I don't think it is in the national interest to establish a constitutionally dubious office simply because the incumbent's regime is uncertain about its political legitimacy. From the Yash Pal Ghai commission to the Committee of Experts, the majority of voters were adamant that they did not want parliament and the executive to conspire to undermine the national interest. Most voters wanted a clear separation of the executive from parliament; the independence of the judiciary was taken as a given. President Kenyatta overworked to blur the lines between the three. President Ruto still has the opportunity to reverse course though he appears hell-bent on walking the same path as his immediate predecessor. An office of the Leader of the Official Opposition may solve the immediate political problems of the incumbent; it will do nothing to hold the national executive to account or improve constitutionalism. Only the ordinary Kenyan on the street will come off the worse.

Time to put them out to pasture

The President cannot initiate Constitutional amendments or changes through the popular initiative under Article 257 of the Constitution. - [2022] KESC 8 (KLR)

The bulk of legislative proposals considered and enacted by Parliament are made by the national executive. It is the rare private member's Bill that is enacted by Parliament and assented to by the President. This is to say that for the most part, the President can send a legislative proposal to Parliament and Parliament, in its wisdom as the representation of the legislative will of the people, can enact it or reject it. Therefore, the President can initiate an amendment to the Constitution of Kenya. What he can't do, and the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court were adamant on this point, is to initiate Constitutional amendments by popular initiative.

It is important to remember one other thing: an amendment to the Constitution by popular initiative does not necessarily mean that a referendum must be conducted on the amendment. A referendum must be conducted if the amendment affects any of the issues found in Article 255. The question of whether or not a referendum is warranted is independent of whether the amendment was by parliamentary or by popular initiative.

As to the question of the "office of the leader of the official opposition", a referendum is definitely warranted. Going by how the Azimio One Kenya Alliance described the functions of the proposed office, it is clear that the proposed amendment falls squarely within the ambit of Article 255 ("the functions of Parliament") and on that basis alone, whether the proposals is a parliamentary one or a popular one, a referendum is necessary for the amendment to be adopted by the people.

Regardless of who brings the amendment process to life, we are being manipulated onto thinking that the amendment is not a bad one. The popular discourse regarding the proposal is that it is a new form of handshake between the new administration and the putative opposition, and it is almost always framed in those terms. The Minority Party in Parliament is not treated as part of Parliament but an Opposition Party in the Westminster style of parliamentary government. It is not. It hasn't been since 2013. But you wouldn't know it going by how the 11th and 12th Parliaments behaved with Parliamentary Parties taking their political differences to such dysfunctional depths that Parliament never effectively played its oversight role over the national executive. In short, Parliament shirked its role and the Jubilee administration got away with all manner of dodgy things.

If we allow the office of the leader of the official opposition to be established along the lines proposed by Azimio, it is almost certain to be the last nail in the coffin of parliamentary oversight and we can kiss whatever restraints there were on the national executive goodbye. First, oversight is not an individual endeavour but an institutional one. A single "office" is incapable of wielding the kind of collective power that Parliament, and parliamentary committees, can. Secondly, and more crucially, it absolves Parliament from the responsibility of lax oversight; parliamentarians can pass the buck and say, "Hey, the Leader of the Official Opposition didn't do this, that or the other" and they can play footsie with the executive to their hearts' content. If the office is established, it is the people who will come out the poorer for it.

Mr. Odinga, and his acolytes including Prof. Makau Mutua, have had a good innings at the hustings but they are more likely today to advance political ideas that are twenty years out of date, like the cult of personality they insist on building around Mr. Odinga. Mr. Odinga's ODM is no longer capable of fresh ideas; listening to the younger members of the party leadership (like Sen. Sifuna and Hon. Ongili), one harkens back to the Kanu of the late 1970s with the likes of Kihika Kimani and Kariuki Chotara springing readily to mind who were determined to sustain a cult of personality around Jomo Kenyatta even though by 1975 it was clear he was over the hill and clinging on to power by the skin of his teeth. It is time to put Mr. Odinga, Prof. Makau and their generation of the Old Guard of the Second Liberation out to pasture, and bury moribund and retrogressive ideas like the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition in the deepest pit we can find.