Sunday, July 18, 2010

It’s a new bold Kibaki as he stamps his authority on reforms

President Kibaki was once famously accused by then opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta of having a “hands-off, eyes-off, everything-off” style of leadership.

Mr Kenyatta would not recognise the Kibaki that has emerged in the last three months. In public and private, the President has launched a determined bid to sell the proposed constitution in a fashion that has left his aides off-balance and confounded even his closest allies.

Where he was content to delegate duties to ministers and the Head of the Public Service in the past, this time Mr Kibaki appears to have made the decision to launch himself into the battlefield.

In the process, he has helped to raise support for the proposed constitution in the crucial Mt Kenya region while ensuring that a ‘Yes’ vote might come to be seen as his most enduring achievement.

In multiple interviews with some of the President’s oldest friends over the last few months, a picture emerged of a man determined to correct the mistakes of his first term, when he sought to achieve a clean break from the Moi presidency and allowed ministers to drive the government’s agenda with minimal interference from State House.

Post-election crisis

While that approach is said to have helped promote creativity and to have contributed to accelerated economic growth, it can also be partially blamed for creating a chaotic political scene that contributed to the 2008 post-election crisis.

“Kibaki has always been the gentleman of Kenyan politics,” says veteran politician John Keen, who has known Mr Kibaki for the last half a century.

“He is a polished man and not a stone thrower. Despite his laidback politics, he has managed to outpace the development record of both Kenyatta and Moi. But his European style will not always work here. You must have an element of dictatorship when you are dealing with Africans, especially Kenyans.”

Mr Kibaki’s approach in whipping his allies and top civil servants into line has verged on the dictatorial, according to various sources interviewed for this story who requested anonymity to freely discuss government affairs.

The President has used Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura as his enforcer in a bid to stamp out the quiet opposition to the proposed law among some top civil servants.

Mr Kibaki’s approach has been a “you are with us or against us” policy, made famous by President George W. Bush.

At a briefing with Permanent Secretaries before they visited Prime Minister Raila Odinga at his Karen home two weeks ago, Mr Muthaura made it clear that the constitution was not a political matter but the central cog in the Vision 2030 government masterplan.

He said that without a new constitutional order, it would not be possible for Kenya to be a middle income economy by 2030 as the plan envisions. Mr Muthaura issued a veiled warning that dissent against the draft law would lead to sackings.

The President’s closest allies have taken the cue from his blunt approach and understood that those who fail to deliver the vote in their respective regions will have an uncomfortable time in the post-referendum period when attention will turn to the Kibaki succession.

In the last month, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka has been active in pushing the campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in his Ukambani backyard where the ‘No’ team appeared to have found strong support.

Mr Kenyatta has also moved to coordinate the campaigns in Central Province in a bid to shore up backing for the proposed law.

Former Cabinet minister Joseph Munyao, who launched the Democratic Party together with Mr Kibaki, Mr Keen and Mr Njenga Karume in 1992, says he (Munyao) is not surprised by the new Kibaki.

“If you look at our manifesto in the run-up to the first multi-party elections, we were the only ones who made it clear that Kenya needed a comprehensive constitutional review and not merely the removal of Moi,” said Mr Munyao.

The DP secretary-general said Mr Kibaki’s party had offered some of the most forceful memoranda calling for a new constitution, including to the Ghai commission when party official Kiraitu Murungi memorably called for the taming of the “imperial presidency”.

Mr Kibaki’s adviser on constitutional affairs Prof Kivutha Kibwana played down suggestions that he was aggressively whipping allies into line.

“The President has governed as though we have a new constitution. He has respected the principle of separation of powers and has not used the executive to crush dissent. He now wants Kenya to have a new constitution which codifies this approach to governance so that citizens will never again be ruled in a dictatorial fashion,” he said.

University of Nairobi scholar Prof Winnie Mitullah attributed Mr Kibaki’s renewed push for a new constitution to a range of factors, including his character.

“It is not unusual for Mr Kibaki to become suddenly energetic. We saw this during the last days of the 2007 campaigns when he surprised many by the amount of ground he covered and the strength he displayed. He would sometimes walk up to two kilometres canvassing for support which, at the time, seemed highly unusual coming from the normally laid-back Mr Kibaki,” she said.

In the last month, the President has had a campaign engagement virtually every day, sometimes taking in three meetings in a day. The repeated forays out of State House have not escaped the notice of Nairobians, with frequent traffic jams caused by the presidential motorcade a visible display of Mr Kibaki’s presence.

This newly active approach, said Prof Mitullah, could be partially attributed to the absence of Mr Odinga from the campaign trail. The PM was previously the key actor in campaigns in support of a new constitution, a position Mr Kibaki has now assumed in a reversal of roles from 2002, when Mr Odinga led the Narc campaign after Mr Kibaki was involved in a road accident.

Prof Mitullah said the perception in the early stages that Mr Kibaki’s native Central Kenya was showing only lukewarm support for the proposed laws forced the President to move in.

“There was disquiet that the ‘Yes’ team was not doing very well there. But Mr Kibaki has changed that dynamic and developments such as Thursday’s announcement by (minister John) Michuki that he would support the draft are very telling,” she said.

Mr Kibaki’s repeated visits to the larger Kiambu, Murang’a, Meru and Nyeri districts, where he enjoys considerable support, have had an effect on opinion polls.

While a Steadman poll in April showed 61 per cent of voters in Central Province would vote for the draft, the newest poll by Strategic PR shows that support has gone up three per cent, despite repeated campaigns in the region by the ‘No’ team.

Residents of central Kenya have been surprised to find Mr Kibaki lately accepting various requests for help where, in the past, he brushed them aside.

On last week’s tour of Murang’a, the President assured coffee farmers the government would waive Sh1.1 billion worth of debt and accepted a request to upgrade Murang’a College of Technology into a constituent college of a university. A similar pattern was on display in his trip to Embu, Meru and Nyeri.

“There are people who have been moving around claiming the President is not keen on the passage of the draft constitution,” said Mathioya MP Clement Wambugu.

“Now they can see for themselves because the President himself has spoken and has been highly visible,” he said.

Another silent threat to the review process – the security agencies – appears to have been neutralised by Mr Kibaki who has asserted his role as commander-in-chief in recent weeks amidst reports of sabotage from the men in uniform.

Informed sources narrated how Mr Kibaki uncharacteristically talked tough at a meeting following the grenade attacks at a ‘No’ prayer rally at Uhuru Park on June 14.

Mr Kibaki called in his senior security officials and demanded answers. That grenade attack became the last major security breach during the campaigns.

Although Mr Kibaki has generally drawn praise for his new approach, some of his allies say there may be risks involved. They point to the amount of political capital he has spent and the considerable challenge of uniting the country after the referendum on August 4.

“If I were in his shoes, I would have steered away from ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ so that, after the referendum, he can bring Kenyans together,” said Mr Keen.

Mr Munyao took a different view, saying Mr Kibaki had spotted an opportunity to earn a place in history.

“Like all presidents when they get a second term, they initially relax and enjoy the fact they are back in office. But then they realise there is something called a legacy and they work very hard. That is what we are seeing now and it is Mr Kibaki’s chance to make sure his legacy is a positive one.”

Additional reporting by John Njagi

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