Talks in jeopardy as ODM man walks out

• Government in danger of missing deadline for a united stance on the new constitution

Efforts by the Grand Coalition to agree on a common position on the draft constitution suffered a setback on Monday after an ODM negotiator stormed out of the talks.

Mr Miguna Miguna, the coalition adviser to Prime Minister Raila Odinga, walked out of a meeting called to resolve differences between ODM and PNU on the roles of the president and the premier under the proposed constitution.

Guidelines

The meeting of the six-member technical team, which was to prepare the guiding document for Tuesday’s final meeting of the Grand Coalition Management Committee, was called off as PNU prepared to present its own position to the Committee of Experts.

ODM presented its position last week.

On Monday, Mr Miguna said he walked out because his PNU colleagues had failed to work within guidelines agreed on last week.

“I realised we were just going round in circles,” he said.

The talks were expected to agree on a common Grand Coalition position on some of the thorny issues in the draft constitution ahead of the Thursday deadline for the public and political parties to present their views to the Committee of Experts.

Officials who attended Monday’s talks said Mr Miguna, who was leading the ODM team of legal experts, objected to a move by the two PNU representatives, Prof Kivutha Kibwana and Mr Justin Muturi, to table findings on how 53 African nations manage Cabinet appointments.

Prof Kibwana is President Kibaki’s adviser on coalition affairs, while Mr Muturi is a Kanu official.

When the two rose to speak, Mr Miguna insisted that they table the constitutions of the 53 nations for their positions to be verified.

When the PNU side maintained that they found it unnecessary to carry all the constitutions to the meeting because they were available on the Internet, Mr Miguna walked out. The move caught his co-negotiator from ODM, Mr Kangu by surprise.

The meeting would have continued but Mr Kangu expressed discomfort at proceeding in the absence of his colleague.

“He told us he did not feel comfortable enough to represent his party alone,” one of the officials at the meeting later said.

But contacted, Mr Miguna accused his PNU counterparts of trying to sneak their party’s position into the day’s agenda.

Besides Mr Miguna, Prof Kibwana, and Mr Muturi, the other members of the technical team in yesterday’s meeting included law lecturer Mutakha Kangu of ODM; and Mr Gichira Kibara and Mr Kathurima M’Inoti, both seconded to the committee by the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

ODM’s third negotiator, Mr Caroli Omondi, did not attend the meeting as he was overseas on official duty.

Legal experts from the two partners had hoped to use the talks to study how various countries manage appointments to the Cabinet under a hybrid system of government where the Prime Minister’s party enjoys majority in Parliament.