Future of Uhuru, Raila deal at risk as principals talk at cross-purposes

President Uhuru Kenyatta opened a Pandora’s box. He was emphatic last weekend that he had no time to traverse Kenya campaigning in a referendum. He would rather, he said, dwell on the Big Four — jobs, health, manufacturing and housing — or rather, his legacy.

One, the plebiscite the President referenced is on the change of the constitution. Its driver is his nemesis-turned-ally Mr Raila Odinga. And, its anchor is the secret and private deal between the two men. Mr Odinga holds that changing the basic law is critical to realisation of their contract.

So was changing the constitution part of the deal? Mr Odinga must have been particularly upset for, addressing the Oxford Union two days earlier and Kenyans in London on the same day the President spoke, he boasted that the world had warmly welcomed their peace-enabling pact.

STRONG PITCH

And before he left for the UK he had made a strong pitch for the change in line with the 2005 draft of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission of Prof Yash Pal Ghai which sought to create an executive premiership and a ceremonial presidency.

Two, the President’s position signalled Deputy President William Ruto to renew his campaign against change of the constitution and to vilify its architect, Mr Odinga.

The DP reads the drive as purposed to derail his ambition for the presidency and to assist Mr Odinga’s for the premiership.

Three, what are the ramifications of the President’s statement on the calming effect of the deal on the politics of the land, return to normalcy in business and investment sentiment? Many dread a return to political uncertainty and economic turmoil.

Four, unfortunately, the President just kicked the can down the road. Almost eight years since the promulgation of the constitution, it has thrown up myriad challenges that need to be addressed and redressed. It is therefore not clear how long the can will stay in the long grass.

PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION

Last, it is now clear the pact cannot be divorced from last year’s presidential elections, the presidential succession and the 2022 General Election. So when Mr Odinga said in London that Jubilee did not win last year’s presidential polls, the DP opened up on him with all guns blazing. 

The DP knows how to frame issues and he often wins propaganda battles against Mr Odinga. So he confidently branded him an incompetent politico, a serial and sore poll loser of questionable democratic credentials, a dictator and a threat to Kenya’s democracy, progress and stability.

As purposed, that cut deep and hurt deeply. But Mr Ruto had reckoned without what was to follow. Five allies of Mr Odinga buried the DP in a tit-for-tat avalanche of abuse and ridicule.

They boldly accused Mr Ruto of taking the President, Kikuyu, Luhya, Abagusii and Luo populations in the Rift Valley, Kenya’s business community and the government as a whole, hostage. These would be freed only when they smoothed the road to the presidency for Mr Ruto.

VENGEFUL MAN

The quintet called the DP Kenya’s Enemy Number One and an angry, bitter and vengeful man. Turning the knife, they said he was determined to put the whole country in his bank account and issue a title deed in his own name. In a word, Mr Ruto is an affront to the presidency he seeks.

Here is the President’s Deputy and the President’s ally tearing into each other over a deal sold Kenyans as designed to rid them of corruption, age-old prejudices and divisions caused by elections and negative ethnicity and bring about inclusivity and prosperity.

That’s a snafu. The reason there have been no details of the deal except skeletal generalities is that the pact was not concretised before it was made public on March 9. It is evident what President Kenyatta reads of it is different from Mr Odinga’s take on it.

CHANGE CONSTITUTION

Obviously, the President is not ready to tackle a change of the constitution. He would defer it to be inherited by his successor and risk sending Mr Odinga into the trenches.

But putting on a brave face on Thursday, but without mentioning the President, Mr Odinga maintained the pact is intact.

By a hair’s breadth! While the pact rid Kenya of post-election uncertainty and forestalled instability, with his remark on the referendum the President gave the lie to unfinished and unwritten business.

For how long, for example, will this pact remain a secretive two-person act and what is the legal status of its 14-person implementer committee?

 Opanga is a commentator with a bias for politics [email protected]