IS THERE MERIT IN THE CLERGY COLLECTING A MILLION SIGNATURE TO FORCE FRESH ELECTIONS?

By Jerry Okungu
Nairobi, Kenya
March 19, 2009

The plot thickens. The other day they told the government to its face that it had failed Kenyans. This time round, they have gone a notch higher. They feel this government has been damaged beyond redemption. They are of the opinion that a dysfunctional government is not worth wasting tax payers’ funds on. And they are not apportioning blame.

They are condemning the President and the Prime Minister in equal measure. These are the two principals the clergy are holding to account for having failed to provide leadership.

The question is: can the clergy provide the badly needed leadership that can force a regime change? Who among them can today be seen as Kenya’s own Desmond Tutu of South Africa or Cardinal Sin of the Philippines?

This sudden outburst by the NCCK member organizations has drawn fire left and right, most of it being vehemently against the idea. Some of them have called it an outrage while others like the Prime Minister have termed it cheap politics and an incitement against the government.

House Speaker Hon Marende has termed it misplaced adding that the men of the cloth have no business in the political affairs of this country.

Yes, I concur with these sentiments that calling elections at this point in time is premature and ill- timed. It is the kind of wrong timing that does not boost the NCCK’s damaged credibility especially at this moment when Kenyans are still smarting from the effects of 2005 referendum and 2007 elections; great moments in our history when men of conscience were asked to stand up and be counted.

In that hour of need, the clergy either refused to guide their flock or took partisan stands and campaigned for political parties along ethnic lines. When the country burst out into flames; they ran to the pulpit and took cover to condemn violence!

Despite this terrible blot on the integrity of the clergy, much as we condemn them for calling premature elections, we need to appreciate that they have a point even if the timing is wrong. Their calling for a million signatures to force an early election was informed by the clergy’s inability to analyze our present circumstances. Had they done so, they would have delayed their pronouncement until an appropriate moment.

The merits for calling for fresh elections are straight forward.
The coalition is dysfunctional and everybody knows about it. There is too much corruption going on within the coalition.

People are dying of hunger while politicians are busy playing Russian roulette with our grains. Frauds in the oil industry are sending inflation to the rooftops making life unbearable for the common man.

Because PNU shortchanged ODM in power sharing arrangement, the cabinet and the public service are not working as a team. The Prime Minister has two deputies yet one has chosen not to report to him. There is too much wrangling instead of service delivery.

Party leaders have embarked on the 2012 campaigns forgetting that they have not delivered on their 2007 pledges.

Reforms are taking too long to be effected. Parliament is too partisan to deliver the desirable institutional reforms. That is why we don’t have the Waki tribunal and the Kriegler recommended interim electoral commission well beyond their deadlines.

With these glaring weaknesses in the coalition, it will be a miracle if the nine-member committee recently sworn in will deliver a new constitution in one year; the deadline we have missed by a good thirteen months since the accord was signed on February 28, 2008.

With partisan grandstanding in Parliament that scuttled the IIEC before Parliament went on recess, it will be a miracle if that Parliament endorses the new constitution in its entirety as required by law.

The reasons we cannot have fresh elections are numerous.

We dissolved the electoral body and are yet to establish a new one. We have no election register as the old once has been nullified. We need to register new voters afresh all over the country. We cannot do this before first putting the interim electoral body in place.

We cannot have elections now because 10 million Kenyans are hungry, starving or dying of hunger somewhere in a corner of our republic. My assumption is that quite a number of them are eligible voters. A hungry voter has no use or value for a democratic process. They need to be fed first before they are able to queue on our voting lines.

We cannot have elections now because the IDPs we created with out faulty electoral rules are still languishing in camps without shelters of their own. We need to resettle them first before we ask them to line up and vote for us again.

We cannot have elections now because this country needs healing from the trauma of the 2007/2008 experience. Until we do that, ordinary Kenyans will never turn out in large numbers to vote only to be murdered, maimed or displaced. Yes, this is where the clergy and the politicians should hold hands and take the lead.

We cannot go for elections now because we want a new constitution that will open democratic space and give us the power to bar thieves from going to parliament. We want a new constitution that will bar MPs from being in the cabinet at the same time, remove MPs from CDF funds, devolve government and cluster local authorities that are financially untenable.

We want a constitution that will guarantee women 40% seats in Parliament, 10% seats for young people and 50% seats for adult male in the same august house.

Yes, we need a new constitution that will provide us with a recall clause to deal with none performing MPs, those MPs that specialize in hate speeches and others that specialize in snoring in the august house during budget speeches.

We need a new constitution that will allow any Kenyan adult with basic qualifications an equal opportunity to vie for Parliament or President without necessarily belonging first to a political party.

We need a constitution that will guard us against parliamentary dictatorship, bar MPs from setting their remunerations and tax MPs just like every other able bodied Kenyan earning a living.

We need a constitution that will free Parliament from the Executive and allow it to set its own calendar.

We need a new constitution that will peg the number of cabinet ministers at 16 with 16 assistants drawn not from Parliament but from the public. Any MP nominated and finally approved for cabinet position must immediately relinquish his seat and another person elected just as we do for the Speaker today.

Without these changes in place; I’m afraid we and the clergy will have to live with the inequities of this coalition for better or for worse.

jerryokungu@gmail.com