ODM/ONYONKA SAY YES

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) will now start a grassroots campaign for its Yes vote on the proposed draft constitution.

The party’s secretary-general, Prof Peter Anyang Nyong’o, instructed branch chairmen to mobilise their members to register as voters and to vote 'yes’ in the constitutional referendum.

In a letter to the officials, Prof Nyong’o said the party had adopted 'Yes’ as a policy and stand on the draft constitution, adding that the party would dispatch relevant documents and campaign materials to the branches for the campaign.

The materials, according to Prof Nyong’o, will contain the party’s “clear stand on the issues that are being questioned by those purporting to say 'No’.”

“Please arrange to provide your branch with information on the draft,” he said in the letter.

“In the meantime, we request you to ensure that members of your branch register as voters before the end of this month.”

Accompanied by other ODM officials at Orange House, Prof Nyong’o said that time was over for “boardroom negotiations” on the draft.

The process was in the hands of the people and it was upon politicians to “meet out there in the field” and campaign for or against the draft, he added.

But as Prof Nyong’o closed the door on negotiations, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is the party’s leader, was last week part of a government team, which met church leaders over the draft.

However, he said that Mr Odinga was free to meet the clergy as a member of the government.

“The government can always meet them. But as a party we want to meet them out there in the field,” he said.

He accused those opposing the draft because of clauses on abortion, devolution, kadhis' courts and land of lying and failing to read the document well.

He argued that the kadhis’ courts had been in the Constitution since independence and no non-Muslim had ever complained of being harmed.

And on land, he said the draft removes powers from the president and commissioner for lands and vests them in a National Land Commission, which would ensure that public land is not arbitrarily awarded to powerful people.

Church leaders have objected to provisions on abortion and the kadhis’ courts, while some politicians have rejected the draft mainly because of its provisions on devolution and land.

Separately, an Assistant minister said he would campaign for the draft constitution because of its provisions on devolution.

Speaking on the sidelines of a diplomats' workshop, Foreign Affairs Assistant minister Richard Onyonka said Kenyans had waited for a new constitution for long enough.

“If Kenyans will want some clauses changed, that will happen because a constitution belongs to the people,” he said as he sought to allay fears that amending the constitution once passed would be an uphill task.