Numbers that reveal success or failure of impeachment motion against President Uhuru

The National Assembly resumes tomorrow with the planned motion to impeach President Uhuru Kenyatta expected to take centre stage.

Though seen as a battle between the big parties making up the Jubilee alliance and Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD), there is an emerging third force that might yet tilt the scales.

The small parties in the two coalitions could turn out to be the difference between success or failure of the motion against President Kenyatta.

With Orange Democratic Movement's (ODM) 96 MPs, Wiper Democratic Movement (25) and 10 Ford Kenya lawmakers, CORD has a total of 131 MPs. For the no-confidence motion against Uhuru to sail through, it requires the approval of 233 MPs, which means that the Opposition is short by 102 MPs assuming all CORD MPs will back the motion.

The National Alliance (TNA) and United Republican Party (URP) have 89 and 75 MPs respectively, bringing a total of 164 MPs for the ruling Jubilee coalition.

Smaller parties have 54 MPs in the 349-member National Assembly. This bloc has been critical in shoring up the numbers of the rival coalitions in the House during important votes.

The Jubilee coalition is banking on support from KANU (6), UDF (12), NFK (6), APK (5), Ford People (4), Narc (3), CCU (2), Independent (2), and one each from FPK, Narc Kenya and PDP to swell its numbers to 207.

While it can easily garner the 117 MPs required for the impeachment motion to be approved, CORD has the gargantuan task of marshalling the 233 MPs it requires to have it proceed to the Senate.

Politics being a game of numbers, both CORD and Jubilee will be doing their calculations, and this is where the often-ignored small parties come in.

If the Opposition were to marshal all the 54 small party MPs to their corner (which includes those in Jubilee-affiliated parties), it will raise only 185 MPs, which still falls short by 48 MPs. This means the Opposition will be forced to raid either President Uhuru's TNA or his deputy William Ruto's URP to make up for the shortfall.

While the Opposition has vowed to embarrass the Government, the Jubilee coalition has vowed to turn the battle into a vote of confidence on the President.

"The impeachment motion is as ridiculous as the proposal to solve teachers' pay dispute through 'harambees'. You cannot solve the country's problems using shortcuts," Deputy President William Ruto told a congregation at Bahati PCEA in church in Nairobi yesterday.

Mr Ruto explained he had no intention of ascending to the presidency so as to have his case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) dropped as propagated by some Opposition leaders.

He said he will back Uhuru in the 2017 elections then battle it out with others in the 2022 elections.

President Uhuru's case at the ICC, he explained, collapsed because he was innocent and not because he was the President.

"As the highest ranking member of URP, I can assure you that we have no business with CORD. URP and Jubilee in general believe in ascending to power through the rule of law, Cord believes in ascending to power thorough impeachment motions. As Jubilee family, we are intact, and CORD will not get any numbers," said National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale.

In the House, and in a scenario where the entire URP brigade (75 MPs) were to join CORD in voting for the motion, the President's wing of the Jubilee coalition will need to work hard to ensure that it regains the support of at least half of the 43 MPs from Jubilee small affiliate parties.

The Constitution provides the DP takes over for the remainder of the term if the President is impeached, which some might argue may motivate some URP MPs to back the motion.

A combination of CORD, URP and MPs from Jubilee's small parties will total to 259 MPs, which interestingly, is the only scenario under which the vote of no confidence motion can sail through. Homa Bay South MP Peter Kaluma believes it is possible.

"I'm certain URP MPs will vote with us. How the motion passes in the House is a political game. We cannot draw up such a motion without a well-laid-out strategy," says Kaluma.

Even an alliance of ODM, Wiper and the entire URP brigade and all the CORD affiliate parties will not be enough to send the President home.

Such an alliance would have 211 MPs, 22 short of the magic number 233. If the alliance were to garner the support of the three unaffiliated small parties (Kenya National Congress, the Independent Party and Muungano Party), it would still be short of three MPs, who will still have to be 'sourced' from either TNA or other Jubilee affiliates.

ODM Chairman John Mbadi said the motion is a serious matter that should not be handled casually. CORD has given several grounds, among them incompetence in handling national duty by the President.