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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Equity: One Kilometre, One Man, One Vote

Here we go again. The magic word EQUITY is back on everybody's lips. Digging in for a fight, MPs are breathing fire to scuttle the yet-to-be born constitution. The war pits Central-MANIACS against Central-PHOBICS. All else is pretence at best and denial at worst.

Make no mistake, our problem is not exclusively due to the present bad constitution. The real problem is that we have and make laws with no intention to obey them. Impunity, another magic word rules supreme.

Looking at PNU and ODM MPs shouting their love for EXECUTIVE presidency and parliamentary governance respectively leaves you wondering what a bunch of AIRHEADS we have as leaders. The truth is that PNU thinks of presidency and Kibaki as synonymous while ODM entertains that fertile imagination that they will remain the majority party forever.

Nobody would have put EQUITY better than Muite. A country is not merely the sum total of its population. True, population is a factor among many others towards creating constituencies. But our mad rush-past-the-post spares us no room to think of tomorrow. All we have and fight to die for is here and now.

We have leaders whose loyalty to anything objective is as good as a dog to fidelity. Their selfish and never-ending petty wars makes Kenya be in a permanent state of tension and they don't care a hoot. What is more, they remain secure in the knowledge that many will buy their pettiness hook, line and sinker.

The word POSTERITY must mean nothing to these scoundrels. Instead of putting their heads together to mend a tattered country, they are busy shearing at every remaining thread. But not for long.

Kenya and Kenyans are far ahead of this lot and very soon they will be put where they belong. It only remains a matter of time.

20 comments:

  1. I have never been inside parliament grounds but have always wondered what kind of fare is served there otherwise how do you explain what happens to bright and intelligent kenyans once they get elected to that parliament.Cases abound of reformists who used to fight for just governance for all but become the opposite when they finally get there,lets not even think about the Kiraitus and Orengos but could someone tell me what happened to Rev Mutava Musimi...?

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  2. The fact of the matter is that both ways, one km, one man = one ballot; Central Province will still remain the losers.

    They forget that that province is NOT the most populous province in Kenya, neither is it the biggest.

    When we talk about one man one vote, NEP may feel disenfranchised but at the end of the day, the mathematics show they are nearly at par with Central in terms of MEAN population per MP and/or Constituency.

    When Kibaki was on an illegal districts creation spree, he had his eye on the conversion of the same districts into constituencies during the time of reviewing boundaries. They reckoned that even out of power, these people would still control the legislative agenda and use it to blackmail those in power. This strategy is backfiring right before our eyes.

    Ati one-man-one-vote only in Central Province and nowhere else.

    If you look Langata constituency, and then zero in on Kibera division alone, how many constituencies will Kibera have if Central Province (read Uhuru Kenyatta) are/is allowed to get their way of one-man-one-vote?

    That is why I am saying either way, this time the status quoist are cornered. There is no escape and we have to change this country once and for all.

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  3. I could not agree with you more. The biggest problem we have in this country is our so called leaders thinking of settling scores in their parochial wars instead of creating a foundation for posterity.

    We should be hanging our heads down in collective shame that America and Germany are reading the riot act for us on governance...but again,it shows how low our politicians have descended.

    Whoever told our politicians that they have monopoly of wisdom forgot to add the proviso restricting that monopoly to matters of the stomach, mediocrity and "air-headedness".

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  4. Why are we concerned about partitioning of votes? Every Kenyan has a rihgt to vote so as long as this stands, it's OK.

    Right now the staus quo is very worried becuase there is going to be some shift in the way central votes in '12.

    Just wait and see. Read my leaps!

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  5. My post above should read:

    READ MY LIPS!

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  6. Kibaki just wants to ensure that he has left the house of Mumbi in a safe position till eternity if he steps down, or that the partitioning of provinces will give central Kenya (assuming that other kenyans are so foolish) a majority in parliament so as to vote to remove two terms limit in the constitution.

    The architect of this whole mess is Kibaki, the other politicians making noise are foot soldiers.

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  7. wewe Tasbu
    What do you have against being a MEMBER?

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  8. First, we insist that, without proper land/natural resources (e.g. airwaves etc), money and banking reforms, there can never be true democracy.

    What we have, even in so called developed nations is a partial democracy which is nothing but, a remnant of feudalism. Thats why to cover up their poverty resulting from these feudalistic arrangements, for instance in the UK, they spend over £ 100 billion in the so called welfare.

    One can have a right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, but that does not say that such a person will not be cold, hungry and sick.

    Simply, stated, a democratic republic alone is not enough to produce general prosperity

    Thus, there needs to be full economic rights which those who control this Babylonian system/shistem as Tosh would call it, have denied even people in the West. It is needless to say that this state of affairs has been allowed to persist due to brain wash education system we have, and therefore, it must also be changed as well.

    Having said that, we think the issue of one man, one vote, one km, one vote can be solved via the upper house whereby all regions shall have equal representation. If so structured, all regions will have a veto on all laws emanating from the lower house. If for instance, the budget is skewed, the disadvantaged region will veto such a budget. This will bring about the compromise needed to push the nation forward.

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  9. It's been a while since I was here last. I quite missed the one km idea, but leo nakubaliana na wewe Taabu. The only prooblem is, you (and I) are not the average Kenyan. The average Kenyan gets taken away by their poitician, who in turn sees only from where he stands today. Think about it, in 2000, it was Kibaki calling for mass action b/c Moi had refused to change the constitution. Two years later, Kibs is president and 7 years down the line, his side is stuck up on an executive presidency. And you think I'd be surprised by what would happen if an ODM -or whatever it or its factions would be called then- dude (trust me, it won't be a mama) became president in 2012?

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  10. PKW said...

    Think about it, in 2000, it was Kibaki calling for mass action b/c Moi had refused to change the constitution.

    Our views:

    We are of the opinion that, the real issue is how law schools teach law and especially constitutional law.

    In all law schools around the world, teaching of constitutional law is dominated by practical men. This means that, there is total absence of a critical analysis of legal evolution.

    If we had legal studies in legal evolution, lawyers would be forced to confront the SOCIAL and ECONOMIC elements that determine the thoughts of the thinkers involved in constitutional projects.

    By so doing, they will be forced to see that constitutions are nothing but ECONOMICS DOCUMENTS and should be read and construed in that manner.

    For instance, Clause 1 of the Bill of Rights of Pennsylvania asserted: "That ALL MEN are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalieanable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending LIFE and LIBERTY, ACQUIRING, POSSESSING AND PROTECTING PROPERTY, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." It was the same in other colonies.

    However, given the composition of the constitutional project (big dominated by land owners), there was no way such a momentous declaration would receive their approval.

    They then decided to give the people the FORM while hiding the substance whereby, the doctrine that all men were entitled to land, or what they called property was omitted. To fool the people, they left a meaningless phrase that all men are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today, you hear American lawyers mouth this nonsense out of sheer ignorance.

    These guys were not ignorant that to live and enjoy life, the means of subsistence must be assured first. However, to inform the masses on this aspect, was to curtail their own power and wealth.

    There we are. American revolution which would have changed the course of history, was destroyed in the cradle.

    Unfortunately, very few lawyers, economists, political scientists and philosophers are aware of this. How can they know when the beneficiaries of this inequity draft their curriculum?

    Thats why all human rights nonsense you hear is just noise to deceive people as to the real cause of their miseries. The truth has not yet been told, for we are still in feudalistic society.

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  11. Nobody would have put EQUITY better than Muite. A country is not merely the sum total of its population. True, population is a factor among many others towards creating constituencies. But our mad rush-past-the-post spares us no room to think of tomorrow. All we have and fight to die for is here and now.

    Kenya already has the worst maldistribution of votes in the world, if Kriegler is to be believed: the example on page 76, where he shows that a vote in Lamu East counts for nineteen times as much as a vote in Embakasi, is proof of how bad the situation is. (It's also midly amusing to see Kumekucha defend the status quo when it's so obviously unjust.)

    The arguments for denying one man one vote have all been uniformly bad so far. Community representation? We can get that with regional list members of parliament, a second chamber, or nominations. Poverty? The allocation of devolved funds is already subject to weighting by the rate of poverty in a given constituency. Gikuyu domination? There are rather a lot of us, and it's supposed to be a democracy, so you can hardly expect us not to matter. There is no conflict whatever between communal representation and equality of representation.

    I'm also particularly impressed by the inconsistency of those ODMers who've said that equality of representation ought to be denied because those asking for it have ulterior motives. William Ruto was director of elections for KANU in 1997; he helped organise the second-most blatantly rigged multi-party Kenya. It's safe to assume that he has no interest whatever in free and fair elections. Nonetheless, when he paced the floor of KICC demanding a recount, ODMers vigorously supported him. And rightly: a recount was his and his party's right, and the fact that neither he nor his party had any time at all for democracy is no reason to deny it them.

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  12. Daniel Waweru tells us that:

    ...Poverty? The allocation of devolved funds is already subject to weighting by the rate of poverty in a given constituency...

    I'm also particularly impressed by the inconsistency of those ODMers who've said that equality of representation ought to be denied because those asking for it have ulterior motives.

    Our comments:

    The only problem we have with your argument is this. You still see the world in terms of PNU v ODM. We think this is not the way forward.

    To be part of the solution, why not tell us for instance:

    - What you think is the real cause of poverty in Kenya?

    - What is your ideal solution to the issues at hand?

    Thus, let us hear your proposed causes and cure/solution.

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  13. still divided along ethnic lines.brothers and sisters can we think along other lines. lines that can improve our well being.
    taboo,phil and the other bloggers,as much as u sound intellegent,u guys are missing the point and continue on lines of division. i can not blame u guys but the environment u live in.environments influence ur thinking.please look up this guy Jacque Fresco on youtube he is a social engineer and may give u insight.basicaly all systems and governments are corrupt and will continue to do so.there is no democracy and justice anywhere in the world.forget it.

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  14. Phil, which is the most populous province in Kenya?

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  15. @mwarange'the

    do the words parrhèsia and isègoria ring a bell? you have been putting them on the back bunner for while.

    "horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them"

    a very accurate discription of the current kenyan politicians on the outside as well as those in a parliament which continues to be occupied by mules and donkeys that have never beared fruit in the last four and half decades.

    re: upper house and lower house.

    how about we replace the upper house with the senate and the lower house with the congress and then get rid of the dead wood parliamentary system all together?

    whereby all regions shall have equal representation in the senate as well as the house of congress.

    and then introduce regional senates besides the above mentioned.

    it's high time that all roads stopped leading unsuspecting citizens to kenya's national village, what now is better known as nairo-stagnation.

    re: brain-wash-eudcation-system.

    the current brain-wash(clog)-education-system a.k.a washed-down-education-system needs to be overhauled or surgically replaced with a worthwhile version if there are to be any radical changes in kenya's political, economic, social, judicial, religious, military, and ethic spheres.

    re: democracy in kenya.

    kenyans can not eat democracy nor live on democracy alone, they have to want more than time wasting cyclical electioneering.

    re: law schools in kenya.

    there is an urgent need for radical change at all laws schools in kenya. it should start with discarding the old time ugly sheep-skins (head-rags/wigs) that are still very much cherished by kenya's educated law society.

    for the record:

    our parliamentarians are fickle and shallow, and dominated by their appetites and whims.

    re: 2012.

    will 2012 result into the more things change the more they remain the same as they have been for the last four decades and half? is that what kenyans are looking forward to?

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  16. Even if you reform law schools and you leave old, very conservative judges on the bench, change will not come. What is needed is new jurisprudence on the bench. Most judges are still too archaic, chauvinistic and conservative to be useful and cant even develop new jurisprudence. The bench is known as a place where lawyers go to retire as judges, not work!!!

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  17. To Mr Daniel Waweru,

    As we wait for your answer as to what you think is the REAL CAUSE of rampant poverty, we hope you have seen the new report by the Kenyan government on poverty levels.

    It is alarming in that:

    - Today, we have now 41% of Kenyans living on less than a 77 KES per day. And, it will get worse.

    - Despite the so called economic growth of Kibaki error (2003 - 2007), which you have lauded many a times, Kenyans are poorer now compared to 10 years ago.

    - As a matter of fact, 3 million Kenyans sunk into poverty between 1997 - 2006.

    According to the researchers, too much politics is the cause of this deepening poverty.

    Let us state our opinion. We utterly reject this as utter rubbish by these researchers.

    So, what are your views bwana? And, do not tell us about PNU and ODM this time.

    Source http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=1144027302&cid=4&ttl=Kenyans bear the burden of endless campaigns

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  18. kenyans have always lived under the 'abject poverty rift' (call it "line" if you will) for ages. the country can no longer provide for it's people.

    kibera and mathare are just tips of the abject poverty berg.

    kenya is one of the poorest countries in africa. there are five thousand very poor kenyans for every one middle class kenyan.

    500-4-1

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  19. Has anyone ever wondered why the educated ones shy away from politics.Its a major problem in Kenya when those with some form of abstract and logical education choose not to participate in poltical issues only to complain in blogs when they leave the country for greener pastures.Get back to the roots, lets for a start finance candidates with at least some degree for the county councils.

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  20. @4:19 pm
    i no longer wonder why they shy away from inffluencing good politics? the reasons are so abvious.

    is there such term as "the educated kenyan" who has been schooled in a foreign language. one who really understands him/herself and kenya than the rest of the least educated citizens of kenya?

    for starters, show me one single japanese, chinese, korean, indian, dutch, israeli, arab, turkish, german, finish, russian, italian, spanish, boer, politician, engineer, inventor, author, thinker, physician, academician, teacher, religious leader, chef, artist, athlete, soldier who considers english to be his or her first/official/de facto national language?

    that might be one of the answer why the "educated kenyan" still shy away from politics?

    kenyans know thyselves first and the rest will work out for the greater good.

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