Kenya's parliament plunges into a crisis

By David Ochami
Kenya headed to a constitutional crisis on Thursday evening as a divided parliament threatened to derail creation of key implementation committees over non-gazettement of 80 new electoral districts.
Speaker of parliament Kenneth Marende has called a special session of parliament that will run into the night to try and defuse rising tensions over the non-gazettement of the constituencies and threats to derail formation of key commissions instrumental in implementing the new charter.
A stalemate over the fate of implementation of the new law forced debate into the night beyond the normal 6.30pm schedule as rival MPs threatened tit for tat action over the approval of the Commission for Implementation of the Constitution CIC and Commission for Revenue Allocation CRA and publication of the new constituencies.
These commissions and new boundaries must be approved by parliament by November 25 to beat a 90-day countdown imposed by the new charter and the law establishing the Interim Independent Boundaries Review
Commission IIBRC.Dozens of MPs supporting the IIBRC have accused a section of the Executive of pandering to "petty ethnicity" and blocking publication of the new boundaries.
Led by deputy speaker Farah Maalim Muhamed the MPs claimed 160 legislators will block approval of the two commissions to protest failure by the government printer to gazette the constituencies.
MPs and a businessmen from Central Kenya have blocked the publication with multiple court orders and the government printer Andrew Rukaria alleges he did not publish a report of new constituencies drawn by IIBRC claiming he did not receive necessary instructions from the Attorney General to compel publication.
But Farah and his allies said courts cannot stop an independent
commission from concluding its work.
"This an independent commission. It does not receive direction and they should be allowed to gazette," said Farah who is the MP for Lagdera.
He claimed some people in the Executive had egged on the government printer to disobey the new constitution and accused judges who have made prohibiting orders on IIBRC of engaging in "judicial activism."
He said Kenya "is now in a constitutional crisis" because the
Executive is promoting abuse of the law using a "rogue" judiciary.
"The Executive should rise above petty ethnicity and strive to leave behind a legacy of statesmanship."
Chepalungu MP Isaac Ruto accused a section of the Executive of
resorting to "monkey business" by, allegedly, engineering a conspiracy in the government press, courts and parliament against the IIBRC.
Nominated MP Rachel Shebesh said MPs supporting IIBRC will not approve CIC and CRA without gazettement of the new constituencies.
She said the matter of the constituencies was "the bigger
constitutional crisis" that ought to be addressed before approval of the commissions.
Gwassi MP John Mbadi said there was no need to approve the CIC and CRA if the report of "another commission" the IIBRC have been ignored.
Agriculture Assistant minister Aden Barre Duale said aggrieved MPs will sabotage the "fraction of the constitution" the Executive wants passed if the "government is opposed to what we support.