It is no retreat, no surrender as egos take precedence over national good

House Speaker Kenneth Marende threw the two coalition principals a lifeline of sorts last week, but President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have rejected the helping hand.

When the President and the Prime Minister met on Monday, expectation was high that they would take advantage of the interregnum provided by the Speaker to resolve the impasse over nominations to constitutional office.

Instead they chose to throw the ball back to Parliament, which now faces the dicey task of adjudicating what is essentially a political deadlock within the coalition government.

When Mr Marende last Thursday declined to make a ruling on whether President Kibaki’s nominations — for Chief Justice, Attorney General, Director of Public Prosecutions, and Controller of Budget — were illegal (or on Mr Odinga’s objections) and opted to pass the matter to the departmental committees, he was not shirking his responsibilities; he was giving the two leaders time to grow up and cease taking their tantrums to the public.

He hoped that a little breathing space would give them time to realise that childish spats of the “mine is bigger than yours” variety were unbecoming of national leaders, especially when played out in full national glare. But instead of the two halting the power struggle that has divided the coalition and raised the spectre of instability, it seems they both went into almighty sulks.

Therefore when they met on Monday, none was willing to budge and they could not reason together.

Aware that Kenyans  were watching and waiting to see how they would manage the issue, they agreed, at least, to both save face with a tepid statement that mostly dwelt on other issues and gave only a scant paragraph on the matter that has transfixed the nation.

The two coalition “principals agreed to respect the ongoing parliamentary process and its outcome”.

That was it. So now it is up to the House Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs headed by Mr Ababu Namwamba to decide whether President Kibaki’s nomination of Mr Justice Alnashir Visram as Chief Justice, Prof Githu Muigai as Attorney General, and Mr Kioko Kilukumi as Director of Public Prosecutions was constitutional and worth a consideration.

The Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade chaired by Mr Chris Okemo in to rule in respect of Mr William Kirwa, who was nominated for Controller of Budget.

Ultimately, however, the unpleasant task of a making a ruling on the legality of the President’s actions might bounce back to the Speaker once the House committees report back with their findings by the Thursday deadline.

This being Kenya, chances are that the committee sessions will be dominated by partisan and ethnic bickering rather than sober and dispassionate interrogation of the issues at hand.

The committees are supposed to look at whether the President flouted the Constitution and the power sharing agreement by making unilateral nominations, as claimed by the Prime Minister. If they find so, then they automatically throw out the list and force a fresh beginning to the nomination process.

Whether such a decision will mean a bloody nose for the President is unclear, but it  looks like he preferred the decision to be made by Parliament rather than be seen to back down to Mr Odinga’s protestations.

But the committees could also vote that the nominations are valid, and that is possible, given the partisan divide. In this scenario it will be Mr Odinga who would be seen to have lost, but he also preferred that the decision be made elsewhere rather than make a compromise that might be interpreted as backing off.

Ultimately, then, it seems the two principals failed to reach an accord because both have giant egos and did not want to disappoint their respective cheerleaders, hecklers, sycophants, and hangers-on. That’s leadership, Kenyan style.

There is an aside to the whole issue. It is called Wako’s Revenge. On the very day last week that Mr Speaker was making his ruling, High Court judge Daniel Musinga declared President Kibaki’s nominations illegal.

The judge ruled so partly because incumbent Attorney General Amos Wako went AWOL and refused to offer a defence on behalf of the government. He is the chief legal adviser.

Mr Wako’s job is one of the four at stake with the contested appointments under the new Constitution!

mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com