Grand coalition serves full term as principals Eight months into the Grand Coalition Government, Prime Minister Raila Odinga received a letter of appointment from co-principal, President Kibaki, spelling out his salary, job description and duties.
The move only served to pour fuel on the already burning fire in the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Party of National Unity (PNU) union. An irked PM came out guns blazing, describing the President’s gesture as “derogatory and disrespectful”.
“He gave me an appointment letter, same as those handed out to ministers. How can one partner purport to employee the other and even spell out his roles, which are — by the way — in the public domain as they are enshrined in the constitution?” reacted Raila in an exclusive interview with this writer.
All this while, the PM had not been paid a single cent as salary. According to the suggested salary scale, Raila was to take home the same amount as that of Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka.
“This issue is not about the amount but rather principle. As a partner in the coalition, I will not accept to be remunerated at par with a deputy of my partner. That is demeaning and abusive to members of my side of the coalition,” he stated.
Power sharing
Ideally, from the word go, the President’s handlers sought to make one point very clear – that contrary to the power-sharing deal brokered by former United Nations Secretary General, Dr Kofi Annan, the two principals were not equal partners in Government.
This partly explains the systematic and well-choreographed strategy to relegate Raila, not just to the Number Two slot but in fact, Number Three after Kalonzo. This is demonstrated in the series of public protocol wars between the VP and PM.
From the onset, the forced marriage between Kibaki and Raila was poisoned and doomed to fail. Raila was livid at the power games as his Orange team pressurised him to lead them out of Government. And the PNU brigade sarcastically egged on the PM to pull out.
But for international pressure and a tightly knitted National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008 that compelled Kibaki and Raila into political marriage, the two leaders reluctantly opted to stay together.
It was never rosy, though, as PNU side regarded ODM as “intruders”. Controversially declared winner in the chaotic presidential poll, Kibaki hurriedly entered into a union with Kalonzo’s ODM-Kenya and his named Government with half of the Cabinet. Cabinet minister Noah Wekesa equates the move to “accommodate” ODM as one persuaded by mutual interests. The MP, who is allied to Ford-Kenya, then a PNU affiliate, says they were handed a full loaf of bread, but because of the resultant disturbance they opted to climb up the tree.
“But we could not eat in peace as our Orange colleagues kept shaking the tree from the ground and hurling objects at us. We decided, it was better to come down and share the loaf, so that we have a bite in peace,” explains the Kwanza MP.
The minister’s analogy indeed best describes what has now famously become to be known as nusu-mkate (half a loaf of bread) serikali or a shared Government. During the first anniversary of Grand Coalition Government, there were clear signs the union was swaying in the winds of suspicion and distrust.
PM’s anger
Raila complained openly about being undermined by the Provincial Administration. And in the now infamous incident in Kwale County, he protested at a nusu mkeka (half-carpet) reception rolled out for him.
Following the incident and others before it, the Orange team made fresh demands. Top among them was that State operatives recognise the PM as co-principal and that he assumes the position of Leader of Government Business in Parliament, currently held by VP.
PNU declined to yield on the two accounts, forcing Speaker Kenneth Marende to declare himself, in the latter case, as acting Leader of Government Business. ODM also demanded that Mr Francis Muthaura’s Head of Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet slot be transferred to the PM’s Office or be scrapped.
Then ODM argued Muthaura’s position contradicted that of Raila as it deliberately crippled the PM’s ‘supervisory’ and ‘co-ordination’ of operation of Government ministries.
There was disaffection by a section of the country that public appointments were skewed in favour of one region, and that beneath the veneer of a democratic rule, the hardliners in Government were returning Kenya to its draconian phase.
Withdrawal fears
Owing to the widening cracks, the marriage became impossible and there was talk of either Kibaki or Raila withdrawing from the union, and soldier on alone. Allies of the President argued that there had been a Government before the Coalition and that Kibaki would technically proceed as President after the death of the Coalition. They even contemplated passing a vote of no confidence in the PM.
However, after consultations at the President’s Harambee House Office, a retreat was organised to iron out differences in the coalition at Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge, Tsavo.
“We boarded a rickety old military chopper at Wilson Airstrip in Nairobi at about 8.30am on April 3, 2009. The flight was horrible. The helicopter was jerking up and down whenever we encountered air pockets or thick clouds,” writes Miguna Miguna, former advisor of Prime Minister on Coalition and Constitutional Affairs in his book, Peeling Back the Mask: A Quest for Justice in Kenya”.
“Once or twice it dropped about ten metres. I looked at William Ruto and Mohamed Elmi who were sitting next to me and they could only shake their heads. There we were, almost an entire ODM team, in one rickety copter. PNU honchos were going to travel with Kibaki in a new state-of-the-art jet. It was clear where the power lay.”
Yet again as Miguna, one of the initial insiders in the Coalition, infers, there was never really a team but teams in the Kibaki-Raila union. As evidenced in the retreat, the Kibaki and Raila teams travelled as adversaries. One arrived in a rickety old military chopper and the other in a state-of-the-art presidential jet.
The retreat collapsed with both camps accusing each other. Much later, Kibaki and Raila would differ again over the former’s nomination, in January 2011, of Justice Alnashir Visram as Chief Justice and Kioko Kilikumi as DPP. Similarly the President and PM remain divided over the appointment and posting of County Commissioners by Muthaura’s successor, Francis Kimemia.
Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara concurs the coalition has managed to survive beyond all expectations, but regrets this has been at expense of heightened corruption and extra-judicial killings. Imanyara laments, “the culture of impunity has been institutionalised”.
Source:standardmedia.co.ke
