PSC settles on presidential model

A House team negotiating amendments to the revised draft constitution Thursday settled on a presidential system of government.

Sources at the Naivasha meeting indicated that they will use the better part of Thursday to iron out the details of the proposed system.

The proposal is said to have been moved by an ODM minister and garnered support from the PNU side and part of ODM.

A PNU minister told the Daily Nation on Wednesday night that there was agreement that the system should be presidential similar to the US model.

The 26-member Parliamentary Select Committee is holding a week-long retreat at the Great Riftvalley Lodge, Naivasha to seek consensus on contentious issues in the draft, mainly the chapter on the Executive.

In the proposed system, the president, who will will be head of state and government will be checked by strong institutions, namely : parliament and the judiciary.

"There was also a feeling that the devolved governments should be strong enough in order to have proper checks on the executive," said one of the MPs.

It was proposed that the president, who will not be an MP, should chair Cabinet and that all ministers should come from outside parliament.

The MPs said that this will clearly separate the executive from the legislature.

The MPs are expecting to use the expertise of the Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission and two statisticians to break a deadlock on the formula for the distribution of constituencies.

On Wednesday, the PSC agreed that there should be 325 MPs of whom 266 are elected directly by the people. This means that an additional 56 constituencies are to be created in addition to the 210 in place.