What cabinet reshuffle means for Uhuru ahead of 2017 poll

In many respects, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s reshuffle of the Cabinet last Tuesday resembled the usual turning of the wheels of democracy.

Generically, cabinet shuffles enable heads of government to replace ministers who have resigned, retired or died; to refresh government after poor performance; and to remove poor performers or reward supporters.

A reshuffle is also an ideal moment to realign government, reassign responsibilities, create, abolish and rename state departments and ministerial posts.

At this technical level, Kenya’s first shuffle under the new Constitution came to replace six cabinet secretaries and several principal secretaries who had been dropped or forced to resign for alleged involvement in corrupt activities.

The shuffle also realigned some cabinet portfolios and raised cabinet posts from 19 to 20 and state departments from 26 to 41 to help ministers cope better with their workloads.

The reshuffle, however, was not business as usual.

Coming, rather auspiciously, on the eve of the arrival of Pope Francis in Kenya, the reshuffle was a three-pronged spear.

It sought to address runaway corruption in the Jubilee administration and restore a clean-hands government, stem a seething rebellion within the ruling Jubilee Alliance over the handling of corruption cases and bolster government’s capacity to deal with political opposition.

The resignation of the Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning, Ms Anne Waiguru, on November 21, paved the way for the reshuffle.

The resignation added to five other ministers who stepped aside in March for alleged corruption, with at least two of them facing charges in court.

A THREAT TO SECURITY

Certainly, corruption will be an electoral issue in 2017.

In view of this, President Kenyatta has seized the reshuffle moment to complete and scale up the anti-graft war he started during his State of the Nation address in March.

Last week, he declared corruption a threat to national security.

He unveiled measures to bolster Kenya’s anti-graft capacity and to rid his administration of political liability, restore its integrity, and give the country a clean-hands government.

The new package includes an anti-corruption legislation, a multi-sectoral anti-graft agency involving public and private sector alongside punitive measures targeting those found to have perpetrated or benefited from corruption, such as blacklisting officials accused of graft and stripping licences from banks violating anti-money laundering rules.

For now, the reshuffle has calmed the ranks of the ruling coalition.

Ms Waiguru’s failure to resign when the Sh791 million corruption scandal in the National Youth Service became public fed the embers of an intra-Jubilee rebellion.

In the Mount Kenya region, this was seen as unwittingly exposing the Executive to unwarranted ridicule, vitriol and salvos from opposition stalwarts.

In the Rift Valley, it fuelled charges of double standards in dealing with corruption and put the Executive under intense pressure to reinstate ministers cleared of some allegations by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Noteworthy, the reshuffle has sounded a death knell to Jubilee’s experiment with a “technocratic cabinet” that came to force in April 2013.

FRESH METHODOLOGY

In the last 30 months, the ruling party has pursued a “two-pillar” model of conducting political business, which demands that ministers steer away from politics.

This model split the Cabinet into two: a technocratic and non-political sphere of cabinet secretaries and the political sphere of the Executive (President and his Deputy).

This approach to public governance drew a sharp divide between “development” (maendeleo) as good and politics (siasa) as bad.

It was inspired by Jubilee’s believe that 2017 will be won solely on the platform of performance in the development sphere.

This model has come unstuck. In Jubilee circles, the technocratic cabinet is viewed as a “lame duck” that is unable to shield the President from direct hits by the Opposition while it is itself in need of protection.

In the absence of the old cadre of political ministers with grassroots support, the government has been left suspended in the air. “Wanjiku does not know who to turn to in the hour of need,” lamented a Jubilee stalwart.

Compounding the problem is a weak political party and the diminished influence of the once all-powerful provincial administration.

From October 2013, the Opposition astutely exploited this vacuum to make a dramatic comeback after the 2013 defeat.

Historians will most likely characterise the opening years of Jubilee power as “the age of rebellion” driven by opposition campaigns on security, corruption and the economy in the 2014-2015 hiatus.

In 2015, ODM has perfected its new data-heavy and media/internet driven “permanent campaign model”, enabling the Opposition to make serious inroads in filibustering and derailing Jubilee’s development agenda.

This has emboldened ODM to revive and launch its Okoa Kenya campaign convinced that it can win yet another referendum against the government as it did during the November 2005 constitutional referendum as a curtain raiser for the 2017 election campaign.

Internationally, a corruption-free cabinet will restore the country’s image as one of Africa’s fastest growing economies.

Companies and investors have cited pervasive corruption as a major stumbling block to doing business in Kenya.

Such a clean-hands government will restore the confidence of Kenya’s international partners.

POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

Notably, corruption was one of the key issues that US President Barack Obama raised during his visit to Kenya in July.

This month, the ambassadors of the United States, Britain and nine other countries said Kenya faced a “corruption crisis”, warning that they would step up efforts to prevent the flow of illicit funds out of the country.

Finally, the reshuffle is a delicate balancing act between development and politics.

The idea is to provide the government with some political muscle.

Three politicians have been appointed to the Cabinet including one senator, Charles Keter (Energy), one MP, Dan Kazungu (Mining) and a former assistant minister, Mwangi Kiunjuri (Devolution and Planning).

Three former politicians had been retained in the “hybrid cabinet”: Najib Balala (Tourism), Eugene Wamalwa (Water) and Joseph Nkaissery (Interior).

However, nine or 45 per cent of the Cabinet Secretaries are technocrats with five (25 per cent) of them from the corporate world, civil society and professional backgrounds.

The reshuffle has far-reaching political effects.

The appointment of Keter and Kazungu to the Cabinet will necessitate by-elections to fill their seats.

GENDER-BALANCE SORE

Moreover, critics posit that the new-look cabinet has not met the requirement of gender balance and inclusivity.

Moreover, the fall of some key ministers from the Cabinet is likely to trigger realignment in the political space in the run-up to 2017.

As in 2007, Charity Ngilu is likely to leave Jubilee and align her NARC party with the opposition (ODM/Cord).

On its part, the Opposition is still cynical, dismissing the recent measures by the President as a public relations exercise and accusing the government of promising much but not delivering enough.

Be that as it may, together with the Pope’s visit, the reshuffle has in the short run calmed the nation.

But it might be too early to predict the real payoffs of the partial return to a politically active cabinet.