Shame on MPs blindly doing President’s bid

President William Ruto’s change of heart on the controversial 2024 Finance Bill has left members of the National Assembly, particularly the Kenya Kwanza voting machines, with egg on their faces.

It is difficult to understand or explain how the very same bunch of MPs who had on Tuesday hurriedly voted for the bill they described as “very beneficial” to Kenyans were few hours later clapping from the lawns of State House as the President announced his decision to drop the tax proposals.

Their sudden about-turn raises the question of whether they were coerced to support the bill or they voted with their conscience, if they have any.

The MPs had in a record sub-30 minutes unanimously voted for the bill, which some of them hardly read. All lawmakers with divergent views on the bill, including their own colleagues in Kenya Kwanza, were dismissed as enemies and saboteurs of President Ruto’s “wise and anointed” leadership.

As if in a show of their bravado the next day, the MPs passed yet another law that turned Kenya into a military state, voting to allow the government to use the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) to contain the protesters.
The hurried passage of the Finance Bill against the prevailing public mood has clearly exposed the underbelly of the National Assembly in this 13th Parliament under the leadership of Moses Wetang’ula.
Under Wetang’ula, the House has acted as an appendage of the Executive, always at hand to dance to the tunes of the President.

Kenya Kwanza MPs hardly turned down any proposal made by the Executive, however dangerous it may have been to Kenyans, a habit that has earned them the nickname “the President’s rubber stamps”.
Although Ruto’s decision to withdraw the bill is undoubtedly a positive response to many of the grievances that protesters had raised, it has exposed the “Yes” MPs as a bunch of selfish individuals who have completely lost touch with the public.

The National Assembly has betrayed Article 1 of the Constitution which mandates them to exercise the sovereign power of the people on their behalf.

Now that President Ruto has made an about-turn on the bill, what moral authority would the MPs who hurriedly voted for it have before Kenyans? Would they still have any face to tell Kenyans about the pros and cons of the next formulated bill and who would believe them?