|
|
 |
Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the Grand Coalition government should adopt a fast and cost effective constitutional review process because most of the pertinent issues, including the composition of the executive, were already agreed upon.
Kenya's constitution-making process has spanned over 17 years with a failed bid in 2005 ending at a national referendum, which saw a final draft, known as the Kilifi Draft, being defeated by proponents of a draft hammered in Nairobi, known as Bomas draft.
The Bomas sought the creation of a parliamentary system of government with a more ceremonial president and a prime minister exercising executive authority while the Kilifi draft seeking the creation of a drastically weakened post of prime minister.
Odinga, who campaigned for the defeat of the Kilifi draft, said Friday that some of the contentious issues in both drafts were resolved under the National Accord Act.
The Act created the ruling coalition after a political deadlock following the 2007 elections.
Odinga said only 10 per cent of divergent views that polarized the nation during the 2005 referendum required consensus.
Speaking during the closing session of the Regional Conference on Constitutional Democracy in Africa, Odinga said the rift over the devolution and restructuring of executive powers were sorted after the presidency relinquished some responsibilities to the premier.
"We should adopt the most direct and economic route to new constitution. One would assume that with the executive question resolved and a better understanding of devolution emerging, then the contentious issues would now stand at 10 per cent , " he said.
The Premier stressed that it was baseless to undertake a fresh start to the review process including the reconvening of the constituent assemblies arguing that the exercise would amount to "reinventing the will of the people" after they submitted the wishes.
Odinga insisted that such an endeavour would add no value to the exhaustively and consultative Bomas constitutional making process and recommended that concerted effort should be directed at the outstanding issues.
He said the aftermath of the last general elections created a constitutional making moment as Kenya realised the deficiencies in governance processes that exposed the country to the fragility of "our nationhood".
The premier urged Kenyans to seize the historical moment and enact a new constitutional order to guarantee a common future for all Kenyans.
"These reforms are designed to secure a common future for all Kenyans founded on constitutional democracy and any attempt to derail the enactment of a new constitution is a direct challenge to the survival of the nationhood," he said.
Odinga told participants that he would jointly with President Mwai Kibaki facilitate consensus building initiative towards the realisation of a new constitution.
He reiterated that the primary objective of the grand coalition government was " to midwife a new constitution and deliver other fundamental reforms in the Judic i ary, civil service, parliament, police and land".
The premier took the attentive conference through a chronology of events and circumstances under which the country ended up with a constitution that created an authoritarian and imperial presidency after the nation attained independence.
He pointed that at independence, the country inherited a clearly structured cons titution with executive powers operating independent of other arms of governance before successive regimes mutilated the format to consolidate power at the center.
|
|
|
 Share your opinion or read the 0 comments written
 Print version
 Sent to a friend |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
Top |
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|