The truth behind Kibaki-Raila feud

What you need to know:

  • President says issue of Leader of Government Business closed
  • Differences between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga over who should be Leader of Government Business in the House show no signs of being resolved as their lieutenants harden positions

Coalition partners ODM and PNU remained hopelessly divided on Saturday over the raging dispute over the Leader of Government Business that has paralysed Parliament.

The political temperature is likely to rise on Sunday when PNU leaders address a press conference at Serena Hotel in Nairobi to respond to Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

On Saturday, it emerged that the standoff in the House last week was a sign of a deeper struggle over control of government affairs.

On the one hand, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has identified Parliament as the perfect launch pad for its new strategy to force President Kibaki and his Party of National Unity (PNU) to consult the Prime Minister as an equal partner in the Grand Coalition government.

On the other PNU views the move as targeted at grabbing presidential powers, a form of a “civilian coup” against the President.

At the heart of the dispute is the position of Leader of Government Business in Parliament, which is being claimed by Mr Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka.

The President wrote to the House Speaker Kenneth Marende endorsing Mr Musyoka for the position, but Mr Odinga sent another letter stating that as supervisor of government affairs, he was the rightful holder of the post.

The standoff paralysed parliamentary business for two days this week as MPs from both sides argued on who between the President and PM should appoint the Leader of Government Business.

On Thursday, Mr Marende announced that he would rule on the issue on Tuesday, if the two principals would not have arrived at an amicable solution.

Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka met on Saturday for the first time since the feud broke out at the funeral of James Kiprop Bett in Eldoret but steered clear of the vexing issue in their speeches to mourners.

In interviews with a cross-section of politicians, the Sunday Nation has established that the position of Leader of Government Business which holds the key to the control of parliamentary business, is so crucial to the PNU side that ceding it will be tantamount to surrendering the House to ODM.

Weaker position

Pro-PNU politicians who spoke to the Sunday Nation noted that their rivals enjoy a majority in Parliament which means that if the Orange leader were to head government business in the House, the President will be left in a weaker position as he may not have control of Parliamentary business.

And last evening State House issued a Press statement saying that the President was not ready to negotiate over the matter.

“Having executed (his) Constitutional responsibility, His Excellency the President considered the matter closed and therefore deemed further consultations on the matter as unnecessary,” the PPS statement read.

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta said there was nothing to negotiate over the two positions while ODM chairman Henry Kosgey said his party would not relent in its quest for the position. He accused PNU of mistreating the Orange party.

Said Mr Kenyatta: “The truth of the matter, even in the last session, it was the President who appointed the Leader of Government Business who became the chair of the HBC. It is his constitutional right to do so,” Mr Kenyatta said.

The minister said that a critical look at the National Accord shows that Mr Odinga signed for ODM while the President signed for Government/PNU.

“All that is happening is that one individual is trying to usurp another’s powers. Rather than deal with the issues facing Kenya we are dealing with a personal issue. It’s not an issue of substance,” Mr Kenyatta said. “Why does someone feel that he should deny another his powers. It’s not acceptable and there is nothing to back down from. The PM has the right to delegate to his deputies and no one is interfering with that.”

Exceptional circumstances

The Kanu chairman said it was erroneous for ODM to compare Kenya with other countries because the grand coalition government had been formed “in exceptional circumstances. It is clear who is supposed to be the head of government”.

However, Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo, one of Mr Odinga’s key lieutenants, said that ODM “will fight to the bitter end” over the dispute.

Former Speaker Francis ole Kaparo said in an interview that the battle that has captured the political imagination of the country centres on the control of the legislative arm of government.

“The House Business Committee sets the agenda for the House. Whoever sets the agenda controls what comes to the floor of the House,” Mr Kaparo said. “But this is a strange phenomenon. Ordinarily there is a government and an opposition. In this particular case it’s a government fighting itself. It cannot be resolved through legalities, it has to be solved politically.”

Meanwhile, key advisors to the coalition principals said the parties would respect the Speaker’s ruling which will set a precedent in the House and shape the future of Kenya’s politics.

“We shall respect the Speaker’s ruling. It is something that must be respected,” said the ODM secretary general, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o.

PNU’s Mutula Kilonzo said: “We will abide by the ruling from the Speaker which I expect will define government as used in the Standing Orders.

“Traditionally, the President’s principal assistant (the vice-president) has been taking that role. That means that Mr Musyoka was rightly appointed leader of government business in Parliament by President Kibaki. His duties do not go beyond the House,” said Mr Kilonzo.

ODM has, however, denounced the notion that the debate on who shall be the Leader of Government Business and the chair of the House Business Committee is a power struggle between Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka.

The party said that it has staked a claim to the powerful positions in order to take charge of the reform agenda.

Assistant Foreign Affairs minister Richard Onyonka said the coalition government is a first in the country and therefore tradition cannot be invoked when dealing with House matters.

And nominated MP George Nyamweya asked if the Prime Minister had consulted the President before writing to the Speaker about his own appointment as leader of government business.

“Why did he not address the House during the State opening? The Head of State is head of government. The leader of government business is basically the President’s deputy. If the PM wants to lower himself to take that position, then he should not insist on equal power-sharing,” said Mr Nyamweya.

He, however, added that the position is not a preserve of the vice-president.

“We don’t expect anything difficult in interpreting a matter that is simple. During Kenyatta’s rein, in the 1960s, my late father, James Nyamweya, was minister of State in the Office of the President and leader of Government Business in the House. The VP then was retired President Daniel Moi,” said Mr Nyamweya.

On Friday, politicians in President Kibaki’s inner circle met and decided he will not cede ground on the matter.

It was the same day that Mr Odinga declared in Eldoret that the job in contention was his since he leads the party with a majority in Parliament.

Those who attended the State House meeting with the President which started at 10 am and lasted more than four hours agreed that the decision to appoint Mr Musyoka would not be rescinded.

The meeting was attended by Mr Musyoka, Cabinet ministers George Saitoti, Kenyatta, Kilonzo, Kiraitu Murungi, Noah Wekesa, PNU parliamentary Chief Whip George Thuo, and Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura.

PM’s performance

According to three officials with knowledge of what transpired, the meeting did what amounted to a point-by-point review of the co-ordinating and supervising work of the PM and his performance as chair of several Cabinet sub-committees. In both instances the participants were of the view that he had performed “poorly.”

The participants also did a similar “performance review” of the critical “development” ministries in the hands of ODM, which are Roads, Water and Irrigation, Local Government, and Medical Services. The verdict was the same.

On the main issue of the VP, the meeting felt that the Prime Minister was not seeking the parliamentary leader’s job as an end in itself, but as a fresh front to systematically cut down the President’s powers or, as one of the ministers put it, to effect a “civilian coup”.

“Raila is actually fighting Kibaki for power. Kalonzo is a nominee of the President. However, think of the football analogies the PM loves to use all the time... about overcoming the defences around the goalkeeper, then making the shot into goal. On this (parliamentary) appointment we have drawn a red line,” one of the participants told the Sunday Nation but adamantly refused to discuss the actual deliberations.

A member of the VP’s circle concurred, insisting that the PM wanted to alter the balance of power in Parliament to the disadvantage of the presidency.

“Look, ODM already has the Speaker’s position and the deputy’s. The push for the Leader of Government Business is something the President cannot ignore. Let nobody forget that the President’s office is executive. After all, he dissolves and prorogues the House,” said the official, who like the others did not want to be identified on this sensitive matter.

Reform agenda

And on Saturday, Mr Midiwo said that the reform agenda would stall if “non-reformers” were left in control of House business.

“Under the National Accord, ODM and PNU are equal. How does one’s deputy become the boss of another. We are ready to fight to the bitter end even if it means going to elections,” the Gem MP said.

The ODM fraternity has a particular dislike for ODM-K, which it derisively dismisses as “ a guest” or an “appendage” under the National Accord as happened in Parliament this week. But ODM-K counters that when the Accord was being negotiated the party had already joined the PNU in a coalition which saw Mr Musyoka appointed VP.

“If you go back to the Serena Talks, you will find (ODM-K secretary-general) Mutula Kilonzo was there on the PNU side. He participated in the drafting of the Accord. They (ODM) joined the government when we were already there. Why don’t they say Kanu is a guest?” asked Kangundo MP Johnstone Muthama, a close ally of the VP. Indeed Kanu was also represented at the PNU side at the Serena Talks by Education Minister Sam Ongeri.

Even before the President’s men sat on Friday morning, pressure had been mounting on the Head of State from his PNU side to exercise the “last-resort” clause of the National Accord by pulling his party out of the grand coalition.

This pressure had been building up from several top aides, politicians and advisers since the failed coalition talks in Kilaguni about a month ago.

When the parliamentary problem blew up last week, a cabal of these advisers decided it was time to call ODM’s bluff. Only the President seemed to be holding back, apparently because he does not want his party to be seen as the one which pulled out of the coalition first.

The National Accord provides that the coalition is dissolved if the country enacts a new constitution or if either of the political parties – through their highest decision-making organs — pull out in writing.

It is silent on what should transpire after such a pull-out. With the President’s men all in a combative mood over the impasse, a differing note was sounded by a former Cabinet minister and personal friend of the President’s from Central Province who cautioned that President Kibaki would be hesitant to stage a dramatic PNU pull-out from the grand coalition.

“He knows the consequences and the kind of pressure that will start coming from the other side to get him out or to make this place ungovernable. He knows all this will be dangerous when there is no ECK,” said the former minister, who has been Kibaki’s friend and ally since their days together in the Democratic Party.

The President had already staked out his position when he issued a statement on Thursday through the Presidential Press Service announcing the cancellation of a scheduled Cabinet meeting so as “to allow for consultations” on the stalled formation of the House Business Committee.

The statement said he had “appointed” the VP to lead government business in the House and also “nominated” him to chair the HBC.

The President’s foot soldiers have in the past gone on the warpath only to be undercut by none other than the President himself after reaching compromises with Mr Odinga face-to-face.

But on this instance they have asserted that he will not retract from the position he took in that statement or in his letter to the Speaker, Mr Francis Marende.

As far as State House is concerned, what the President had communicated was the constitutional position.

The Orange party dug in for the latest round of battle for power to push their PNU counterparts to give in to wider consultations over the running of the shared government, the Sunday Nation has learnt.

The plan was finalised at an ODM ministers’ meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Treasury boardroom on Thursday morning, ahead of the debate when the jostling played out in Parliament.

Some of the speakers who attended the meeting, according to multiple interviews conducted by the Sunday Nation, sold the argument that Mr Odinga should hold the key positions now in contention as leader of the Parliamentary majority in Parliament.

The speakers from that school of thought argued that should Mr Odinga hold the position, President Kibaki and his advisers would have to consult the Prime Minister more often since the latter will in a big way control Parliament’s agenda.

The President’s men – among them Mr Musyoka – are of the view that Parliament should stick to tradition where the VP or any of State House’s choice should hold the two positions.