Interesting time we live in this country. The fuel crisis, the plight of farmers, inflation and the people who want power to decide the allocation and distribution of resources are taking advantage of the situation to gain cheap mileage through the now increasingly popular lamentations.
You would expect that with the current constitutional dispensation, the traditional idea of the opposition making noise and finding fault would be a thing of the past. Today, Parliament’s work is cut out. Both majority and minority side are mandated to work out the legislative frameworks that provide solutions and even supplementary budgets have to originate from parliament then once assented to by the president they become law. Therefore, to address the current challenges, the traditional notion of fault-finding without offering solutions or at least pathways to the solutions is the hallmark of pedestrian leadership.
When you have a working executive dealing with these issues at the policy level you would expect the legislative arm that went around wooing voters to give them power to run government to provide that legal framework that underpins the policy solutions. Interestingly this week as the president was signing bills addressing the current challenges into law, the self-proclaimed opposition of the day, Kenya Kwanza, was out blaming the government. Interesting because the reader of the statement is the second in command in the government and he was pulling no punches; oblivious of the fact that a solution was already worked.
Clearly, we have a situation where taxpayers are spending a lot of money on an office that appears to have an occupant who is out of touch with what his government is doing. The least we would expect is for the Kenya Kwanza team to be constructive in what they do and say. Offer pathways for solutions if they indeed care for Kenyans. But behold it is a campaign season and every opportunity must be milked.
Milking every single opportunity has oscillated between calling the rival presidential candidate a project with claims that Raila Odinga has abdicated his role as the opposition leader. Fairly interesting because, first the constitution does not envision any role for an opposition leader. Secondly, they continually remind us that the BBI was a great bill for governance because at least it was bringing back a designated opposition leader. Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that has given the BBI promoters a roadmap by throwing out the basic structure doctrine and given back the sovereign power to amend the constitution to the people. Certainly, if there was an audit of the constitution, then this behaviour and rhetoric by Kenya Kwanza leadership gives a clear indication that a lot needs to be done to sort the conundrum of a sitting DP abdicating his constitutional role while abrogating nonexistent roles to an individual.
If Raila Amollo Odinga is an institution that Kenyans have to turn to in times of crisis, then we need that institution for posterity. And if the handshake means that consultations work behind the scene and the united leadership delivers on Kenyans, then why would anyone want lamentations and press conferences every other day with little solutions. Kenyans certainly need to understand that politics should address allocation and distribution of resources with the least interest for political clout, especially if public interest is served. It is embarrassing when a team of leaders lament for political mileage, especially when advances in technology gives the citizenry the opportunity, through social media live streams, to see the two sides that represent the leadership today – the lamentation group on one side and solution oriented group that delivers solutions without calling attention to itself.
Critics have averred that the DP has not abdicated his role; that his powers were taken away. But the question to ask is taken away by who, where and for what reason? Chairing a constitutional meeting like IBEC is a role given to the second in command and when he oscillates between calling himself an opposition leader one day and chairing such meetings then we can only read political speak at best. However, the depths of the answer to such questions are political and maybe indeterminate depending on political persuasions. The truth of the matter though is that power and responsibility are functions of resources and the office of the DP is fully resourced and financed to deliver on Kenyans. If anyone doubts that, they only need to look at the tax payers financed trip that the DP and a team of his political associates took to the US and the UK. That was a work trip and maybe someone should explain to Kenyans how the conception and execution of such an expensive trip is possible for an office that is allegedly crippled. And by the way what gains on investment did we accrue from the trip?
One would imagine that the same team that took the trip would be proactive with renewed vigour and ideas to constructively engage and arrive at solutions. These leaders want to use their numbers in parliament to interrogate BBI yet they can’t use the same numbers to provide solutions. They are promising Mt Kenya voters a lot of goodies yet they are also bragging that they brought down BBI, which had Ksh 54 Billion for Mt Kenya and a robust mechanism to address inequitable distribution of resources. Interesting times indeed, but then it is the campaign season and for football lovers it is like the transfer fever period and the end of season run-in. You want to win big, but you can also lose a key player to your rival.
The author is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies and Political communication.
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