File | NATION President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga at a past function. According to close aides, the two are not seeing eye to eye.
By BERNARD NAMUNANE bnamunane@ke.nationmedia.com AND PATRICK MAYOYO pmayoyo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Tuesday, May 10 2011 at 22:00
Posted Tuesday, May 10 2011 at 22:00
In Summary
- Cabinet shuffle, Hague trials, appointments to top jobs and rows in House teams fuel rift
Differences on reshuffling the Cabinet have set President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga on a collision course.
Interviews with MPs from both sides revealed that whereas Mr Odinga was eager to clean up and rebuild his party by ridding it of rebels such as suspended minister William Ruto, the President appears to be in no particular hurry to reshuffle the Cabinet.
The two principals were also said to be split on the cases facing the Ocampo Six at The Hague, the fight over parliamentary committees, appointments to top government jobs and the fresh invasion of another island in Lake Victoria by Uganda soldiers.
The fear is that unless the two mend fences, this could delay the implementation of the Constitution and possibly lead to the dissolution of Parliament.
That the PM was planning to change his troops in government came out last week when he told a news conference in his office that a reshuffle will be effected in “due course” to fill vacancies in ministries.
Affected dockets are Higher Education, Industrialisation and Foreign Affairs.
The chairman of the Luo Parliamentary Group John Pesa was categorical that rebel MPs should be thrown out of the Cabinet and their positions given to loyalists.
“ODM has people from various ethnic communities who are loyal to the party who should fill positions held by rebel MPs,” he said.
On the PNU side, Medical Affairs assistant minister Kazungu Kambi accused Mr Odinga of instigating the deadlock in the Justice and Legal Affairs committee to start a fresh rift in government.
“Raila is behind the war in the Legal Affairs committee and he doesn’t mean well for the President. The war in the committee is meant to make it difficult for the government to work,” he said.
But the new Constitution has an inbuilt self-triggering mechanism which overcomes any attempt to block its enforcement in 261(7) of the Transitional Clauses.
ODM Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo submitted that whenever the two principals meet, they prefer to delegate sticky issues affecting the relationship between their parties to the Management Committee on the Affairs of the Grand Coalition, which is inactive.
This has prompted Parliament’s House Business Committee to set up a three-man team comprising Cabinet ministers Mutula Kilonzo (ODM Kenya), Anyang’ Nyong’o (ODM) and Kiraitu Murungi (PNU) to revive the coalition committee to handle the differences.
The three-man team was formed after wrangles in the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee escalated last week when ODM withdrew its members and boycotted a workshop in Mombasa meant ro resolve the issue.
Cede ground
And at the weekend, Mr Odinga declared that ODM was ready to go for elections in case of any eventuality concerning the ongoing wrangles over the implementation of the Constitution.
He warned that ODM will not cede ground and accused PNU of scuttling the implementation process.
“We are ready to go for elections anytime,” he said.
Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo said that politics linked to the 2012 elections were affecting the relationship between coalition partners and warned of the danger of a dysfunctional Legal Affairs committee.
He claimed there was something the two sides were hiding from the public.
“There must be something hidden which we don’t know,” he said.
“There must be something hidden which we don’t know,” he said.
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