Why this obsession with a Prime Minister?

There are a lot of good things in the draft constitution. But it is now crystal clear that Kenyans are going to lose it all because of somebody’s obsession with a silly hybrid system.

Why anybody would get so obsessed with this dangerous experiment just beats me. Tell me something, when a company is in a crisis what do you do? Do you start to undertake dangerous experiments? Do you create a new system which will make it difficult for anybody to take responsibility for failure? Will somebody then make me understand why we must have a hybrid system and why we must continue to insist on it even when it is crystal clear that most Kenyans are against it? (By this is now official. Today the nation printed as its’ main headline what many Kumekuchans have known all along (at least the ones who have believed me) and that is the fact that most Kenyans are against having both a president and prime minister.

The excuse at the beginning for this crazy experiment (which has never worked anywhere else in the world) was that we were trying to get rid of an imperial presidency. Nobody stopped to ask the simple questions; is this the only way of reducing the powers of the presidency? How have other countries reduced the power of the executive? Instead our so called experts have been at pains to cheat Kenyans that a hybrid system is the only way out our problems of the past.

I find it rather instructive that although the committee of experts responded to public pressure and restored the provincial administration (more on that later) they chose to ignore the section that was crying out most for them to take action, the issue of having two centres of power within the executive.

Now if I may ask, if a government under such ridiculous constitution fails, who will take the responsibility? The president or the prime minister? And please don’t tell me both.

Let me end this angry post by saying something about the provincial administration. The truth of the matter is that a lot of the excessive powers of the presidency stems from the provincial administration. Most Kenyans do not realize this. And that is why it is funny when somebody argues for a hybrid system and then in the same breath says that the provincial administration MUST be retained. In my view let’s keep things simple and neat. Let’s get rid of the prime minister nonsense and check the president’s powers using both the legislature and the judiciary. And then let’s get rid of the provincial administration. Let’s get serious about having devolved government and let people vote for their leaders at the grass roots. If they want to elect devils who will steal everything, let them, it is their democratic right.

I find it unacceptable that a lot of the arguments coming from Kenyans these days are to the effect that the ordinary Kenyan voter is not intelligent enough to make a wise informed decision and they therefore need “help” in the form of legislation. This is the reason why most people fear devolved government and it is the same reasoning behind the Mudavadi local authorities bill that will require Mayoral candidates to be university graduates even though they will be elected directly and not by fellow councilors is the case currently. My dear fellow “well educated” Kenyans, lets stop pretending and hiding our real thoughts behind many nice words that the common folks don’t even understand. Let’s be blunt and take this thinking a step further and create two different classes of voters. One the educated Kenyan voter whose vote will count twice against the single vote of the poor illiterate pumbavus from the village. Is that what we want? It seems to me that many Kenyans are very determined that we continue to widen the gap between the two different classes of Kenyans we have created.

P.S. I continue with my weekend specials next weekend and before then I will hopefully complete my current special on the dark secrets of the presidency. I will announce later what my topic for this weekend will be.


Other articles on the constitution from Kumekucha:

Why are ODM so determined to force a hybrid system on Kenyans?

What I have against a new constitution

Why the draft constitution is juice laced with poison