Where Wanjiku could get a raw deal in Uhuru-Raila handshake

The pledge by President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga to end their political hostilities is welcome.

The challenge now is to make the new political rapport work for the larger citizenry and not just the elites as has happened before or we will find ourselves in the same hole and digging.

Why would Wanjiku be sceptical?

Politicians’ interests may not always converge with the common good.

SELFISHNESS

In this case, let’s be upfront on three areas where politicians from both sides are likely to converge for selfish gain.

Their first area of departure with Wanjiku is “inclusivity.”

Their idea of inclusivity is to have a bloated executive with a president, a deputy president, a prime minister, two deputy premiers and 40-plus cabinet.

Well, if that is what will bring inclusivity and stop us from tearing our nation apart, so be it.

PING-PONG

But, for heaven’s sake, let’s not exceed the 22-member cabinet constitutional ceiling, with the deputy PMs holding substantive portfolios.

Still on “inclusivity”, our politicians have played ping-pong with the presidential and parliamentary systems, depending on what they think will suit them in an election.

For Wanjiku, that makes no difference so long as our politics is mobilised along ethnic lines.

In a presidential system, tribal ‘warlords’ will gang up to clinch the presidency; in a parliamentary one, they will connive to have the most lawmakers so as to produce the executive prime minister!

COMMUNITIES

A meaningful inclusivity for Wanjiku will come when we have two or three strong political parties with a national outlook.

Then, any Kenyan will be assured of rising to national leadership — as in Tanzania and South Africa.

Only that can eliminate the trend where the five-largest ethnic communities cobble up coalitions and almost exclusively share the spoils.

Also, given our population and resources, do we really need 2,000 MCAs, 320 MPs, 67 senators and 47 governors?

When you look at comparative statistics across the world, you are at a loss what we had smoked when we settled on such a wasteful, unproductive labyrinth of busybodies.

ENCLAVES

Why not at most 15 counties carved largely as distinct economic zones and not ethnic enclaves?

Why 2,000 MCAs who think money grows on trees?

Why 18 MPs in Nairobi when we can do with four — in Nairobi North, East, West and South constituencies?

And what do we need senators and woman representatives for?

The other area of conflict is in devolution.

DEVOLUTION

When they talk of “strengthening devolution”, politicians mean increasing the money dished out to devolved units by the national government.

For Wanjiku, the priority is not how much they get but how they spend it.

To get the true picture of where devolution has failed and what needs to be done, just read the reports of the auditor-general and the controller of budget.

According to them, three factors threaten to make our devolution stillborn: Theft and wastage, unsustainable recurrent budget and failure to self-generate income.

UNREALISTIC

With the knotty issues, raising the percentage of budgetary allocation to counties from 15 to 45 — or even to 60 as some unrealistic politicians have suggested, will not help.

The third area where politicians may take us back where we were in 2013 and 2017 or worse is in “electoral justice”.

To them, that is only when they are declared the winner.

Otherwise, an election is either stolen or the system flawed.

COMMISSIONERS

The ultimate test of Uhuru-Raila handshake will be picking electoral commissioners.

In public and in private — at least he has told this writer in an interview — Raila insists that electoral justice will only be real in Kenya if political parties pick commissioners on the basis of parliamentary strength.

Jubilee side might bend over backwards and buy Raila’s idea.

We will then have IEBC declare two different “winners” with each “legitimately” swearing himself in as president.

A real disaster for Kenya!

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