This archive report was first published on 6 October 2019.
Why Parliament's Vote on BBI is a Threat to National Interest ¶
President Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga's handshake on March 9, 2018, marked the beginning of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), which aims to change the Constitution. However, the BBI team's decision to recommend a change through Parliament rather than a referendum has raised concerns about the process being hijacked by personal, tribal, corporate, and political vested interests.
According to the Constitution, the process of changing the Constitution should be owned by the people. However, Parliament is seen as a citadel of personal, tribal, corporate, and political vested interests, where MPs are often driven by self-interest and party loyalty.
Mr. Kenyatta's interest in a trouble-free second term and Mr. Odinga's desire for power have made them bedfellows, turning yesterday's foes into today's allies. The BBI process is not people-based, but rather an issue from the marriage between the two leaders.
A vote in Parliament changes and restricts the playfield, benefiting the tinkerers at the expense of Wanjiku (the owners) and seekers of genuine and people-based change. President Kenyatta's move to make Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i chairman of the Cabinet and de facto prime minister without amending the Constitution has tested the waters and concluded that the coast is clear for the executive and legislature to tinker with the basic law for partisan political purposes.
By skipping a referendum, the BBI team is saving public money in tough times, but this conceals the exclusion of the people from a process they should own. It also diverts attention from a fundamental issue: a full-time premier is as different from Dr. Matiang'i's current post as day is from night.
Furthermore, avoiding a referendum saves Kenya a divisive and poisonous campaign whose toxicity would feed into the General Election a few months down the road. BBI's call is to rid Kenya's politics of toxicity, but by ducking a plebiscite, they will scuttle Punguza Mizigo, the rival populist change process sponsored by Dr. Ekuro Aukot's Thirdway Alliance.
Mr. Odinga and the political elite regard Punguza Mizigo as an inconvenient moral pinprick. In Parliament, to fight a vote on the floor of either House, you must know how to arm-twist and cajole; sweeten and frighten; and, most importantly, how to count.
Is Parliament BBI-occupied territory? At face value, yes: BBI is owned by President Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga, and so lawmakers of their parties should vote as instructed. However, Jubilee is a divided house, thanks to Deputy President William Ruto's naked ambition and premature campaign to succeed his boss.
MPs' insatiable lust for invading the public purse to increase their pay, perks, and pensions, in life and in death, and introducing new entitlements, plus vested interests, will dictate Parliament's vote on the Constitution. Forget national interest or posterity.
