Uhuru: I am not interested in a third term

What you need to know:

  • There were reports that a two-day meeting of Mt Kenya leaders in Naivasha was to discuss the possibility of amending the Constitution to accommodate Mr Kenyatta’s rule beyond 2022.

  • President Kenyatta also disclosed that his March 9 handshake with Mr Odinga was towards bringing an end to the animosity that engulfs Kenya every time an election is approaching.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has dismissed debate about his political future after 2022, saying he will retire when his second and final term ends.

At a time when there are active discussions to make him an executive prime minister with arguments that he is “too young to retire”, President Kenyatta told CNN’s Richard Quest that he was not interested in a third term.

STICK AROUND

However, he did not specify if the third term referred to him extending the presidential term, or the premier option.

“I’m not interested in a third term,” President Kenyatta told Mr Quest.

Mr Quest had asked President Kenyatta, who took the interview on his birthday on October 26, but which was aired on Monday night, to say whether he will stick around “if anybody says, ‘Oh, we want you to stay, we want you to stay.’"

CONSTITUTION

President Kenyatta talked broadly about the ongoing debate on referendum and how that might affect his term, insisting that the current discussion was only about the cost of running the Constitution.

“People are talking about constitutional changes not necessarily because they are desirous of the President to seek a third term. They are talking about constitutional change because of issues related to the costs of running this new Constitution,” he said.

PRIME MINISTER

However, there have been growing calls for a change of the executive, with an emerging line being the making of President Kenyatta an executive prime minister, with a weakened seven-year one-term presidency.

Those behind the thinking argue that while he is barred from running for the presidency again — with the Constitution limiting the maximum terms to two, each five years — it was easier, and perhaps viable, to have Mr Kenyatta come back in a different position.

BOMAS DRAFT

There were reports that a two-day meeting of Mt Kenya leaders in Naivasha was to discuss the possibility of amending the Constitution to accommodate Mr Kenyatta’s rule beyond 2022, but disagreements over its approach forced the leaders to abandon the subject.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has often called for a Bomas Draft-kind of document that also expands the executive and creates a prime minister’s position. Produced at the Bomas of Kenya Delegates’ Conference in 2005 — spearheaded by law professor Yash Pal Ghai — the document, which was shot down by Kenyans in a referendum, had proposed a president, a deputy president and a prime minister.

COALITION

The prime minister, who had to be the leader of the largest political party or coalition in the National Assembly, would be appointed by the President from among MPs with the approval of Parliament.

The prime minister was also given powers to nominate a maximum of 20 and a minimum of 15 ministers, and an equal number of deputy ministers, from among members of the National Assembly, and subject them to the approval of the Senate, before being appointed by the President.

SEVEN YEARS

Tiaty MP William Kamket has also proposed the same system, but wants a seven-year one-term President.

In the interview, President Kenyatta also disclosed that his March 9 handshake with Mr Odinga was towards bringing an end to the animosity that engulfs Kenya every time an election is approaching.

"We've said, 'Look, we don't have to always agree on everything. But we can agree on things Kenya, and we can agree that this issue of cyclical elections has to come to an end,'" said Mr Kenyatta.