As he contemplates the defeat of his proposed constitution, Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki can at least take comfort that the referendum that threw it out was clearly free and fair. Unfortunately that is one of the few good things about Kenyan politics at the moment. Electors have little faith in any politician and as corruption and economic mismanagement continue, they are retreating to vote on tribal lines.
Kibaki came to power in 2002, breaking the power stranglehold that the KANU party had enjoyed since independence in 1963. He had campaigned on promises to stamp out corruption, create jobs and improve welfare. Outside aid donors welcomed his administration and began to remove restrictions on aid imposed in the face of rampant graft. Unfortunately, the dishonesty that had become ingrained over 40 years has proved far harder to end than Kibaki may have assumed. Indeed, some of his close circle of advisers, known as the “Mount Kenya Mafia” are themselves now accused of corruption. International donors are once again closing their pocket books because an astonishing one billion dollars of funds is thought to have gone missing in the last three years.
In the euphoria of Kibaki’s presidential win, a National Constitutional Conference was convened to hammer out a fairer distribution of executive power between the offices of president and prime minister. It was hoped the new arrangement would provide checks and balances for both positions. There were also to be radical land reforms. In the event the final document put to the voters fudged the land reform issue and actually increased, rather than decreased, presidential powers at the expense of the prime minister. So serious were disagreements over the document that seven members of the government campaigned against it.
Indeed the basics of the constitution seem to have played only a minor role with voters, many of whom could not have read it anyway. The alarming level of illiteracy among Kenyans was demonstrated by the use of a banana and an orange as symbols for Yes and No in the referendum. Voters were clearly more interested in seizing the opportunity to register a protest against the government in advance of the next elections in 2007. KANU politicians exploited their anger and frustration turning the vote into an attack on the president.
Kibaki now finds himself with weakened authority. If he calls early elections, his National Rainbow Coalition, even if it holds together, will be defeated. The tragedy here is that the president missed a unique opportunity to make a decisive break with Kenya’s corrupt past and now leaves the country facing a very uncertain future.
The good thing is that, the referendum has shown that Kenya has changed. A true dictator never loses a referendum. That Kibaki lost one proves that Kenya, for all is troubles, has something to be proud of. If it can build on that and if its leaders continue to exhibit the wisdom to respect the wishes of their people, Kenya is on the right road, all its troubles notwithstanding.
