Kenyans heaved a sigh of relief when Azimio showed willingness to resume bipartisan talks. The question, however, is: "Are the talks necessary?" The answer is an unequivocal yes. Since the advent of multi-party democracy in 1992, we have grappled with massive mid-term political tensions or post-election fallout that have left us poorer economically, and with a wounded national psyche.
Before the 1997 elections, the opposition almost made the country ungovernable through its demand for a more transparent Elections Management Body. The salve that contained this fallout was the now famous IPPG deal. Prior to the 2002 elections, there was a massive mid-term fallout and President Moi ingenuously contained it by constituting the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission which led to the Bomas process.
When the Narc government came in, its mid-term fallout was the referendum, which took us to 2007 poll-related violence, which eventually set the stage for the disastrous ICC process and eventually bequeathed upon us the 10 years of Uhuru Kenyatta and as you can see, we seem to be running on a pumpkin. A case of walking through a revolving door.
There was a legitimate expectation that in the post-2010 Constitution era, our politics would be more hygienic and sedated but time has proved that indeed the more things change, the more they remain the same.
We are all witnesses that the cold print of the law and presumption of good faith is not enough to tame the malevolent forces of political ambition, especially in an environment where there are masses who do not know better but are reeling from the after-shocks of market failure.
Why must the bipartisan talks succeed? First, the talks underscore the fact that we have a government that is legitimately in office and no amount of belligerence can negate that fact. This then gives us a platform to ventilate on governance challenges that we might have failed to articulate through traditional channels, either because of the formalistic conduct of business in those institutions or due to the underlying interests and potential political blow-back.
For example, the doctrine of subsidiarity is very important in constitutional democracies. So, between a pure presidential system and a parliamentary system, which one would guarantee greater subsidiarity? In the question of accountability, is it easier to run the government from Parliament in a Westminster model and is it prudent to have Cabinet secretaries, who are more or less glorified principal secretaries but who are largely strangers in the house, thus hampering the Legislative-Executive relations, and coordination?
For a country that is groaning under the wage bill weight, is it economically and politically viable to have 47 devolved government units together with their assemblies while some of the issues in such assemblies are cross-cutting?
For argument's sake, take the former Nyanza Province with six County Assemblies, having similar issues such as fishing, farming of cotton, sugarcane, tea, coffee, tobacco, etc.
A single assembly in Kisumu with timely disbursement of funds would be more meaningful than the fragmented units that we have. We would therefore retain the wards as presently delineated as centres of development while using the constituencies as centres of representation.
As a country, the time has come to set aside small politics that only generate more heat than light. Let it be said by the future generations that the Otiende-Murugara team gave this country a chance to match necessity with courage that finally helped us extinguish the sub-nations that we have left to fester on because of predatory politics.
Mr Mwaga is a governance and policy analyst. kidimwaga@gmail.com
