Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka described Arusha Assembly MP Hassan Omar as “childish” during a hot-tempered exchange at Bomas on Tuesday evening.

Kalonzo thought that the former Mombasa Senator was cheapening the talks by “demonising” individuals presenting views unpleasant to Kenya Kwanza.  The talks co-chair Cecil Mbarire had asked civil society veteran Suba Churchill a loaded question which was meant to return a verdict that a  consequential politician was the cause of disputes on elections.

 Churchill did not fall into the trap and instead built a case that our elections have been “perennially manipulated and rigged.”  

Things hit the roof when Churchill stood his ground that former electoral commission chief Wafula Chabukati, a darling of Kenya Kwanza, emerged fourth in interviews for the job but went ahead to secure the appointment.  He then cautioned the hostile Kenya Kwanza delegation not to “tempt us,” otherwise he will spill the beans. A suggestion that President William Ruto was not innocent in Chebukati’s appointment was most infuriating.  In the altercation that followed, Kalonzo told Omar that because of his “childish” behaviour he will never be governor of Mombasa.

Omar retorted that Kalonzo, too, will never be President of Kenya. The rest of the exchange was too disrespectful to be published in a family newspaper. One wonders, where is the place of good manners, respect for elders and basic decency in politics. You may have your own reservations with Kalonzo, but he is old enough to be Omar’s father.

In fact, Omar sits with Kalonzo’s son, Kennedy, in Arusha. And for Heaven’s sake, Kalonzo has been Vice-President. Those who have been following the conversations at Bomas would tell you that apart from overzealousness and discourtesy of the young politicians in the room, there have been solid presentations. And given the legal   architecture of the talks—consensus on key issues will be enacted into law—Kenyans have reason to give them attention and be extremely vigilant.

It is highly likely that the political elite will close rank on issues close to them at the expense of “popular but inconvenient” views touching on the people.  First, the illegal position of Prime Cabinet Secretary will be entrenched in the Constitution and that of Leader Official Opposition created with hefty perks to appease the usual suspects.

The unpopular views of voices such as Attorney-General emeritus Githui Muigai and Amos Wako will be ignored. This is what they said.

That opening of the IEBC server as demanded by the Azimio brigade will not be of any help.

That the dispute over the last presidential election ended with the decision of the Supreme Court.

Muigai proposed that the National Assembly was bloated and constituencies should be trimmed to 200. There was also a suggestion that the Senate was largely “an idle flowery girl” on the legislation table.

 The Senate structure was irredeemably weakened by what the late Senior Counsel Nzamba Kitonga called the “Naivasha debacle.”

Members of a House committee on constitutional review -including President Ruto, Wako and Speaker Moses Wetang’ula– retreated to Naivasha and mutilated a draft Constitution agreed at Bomas which proposed a powerful Senate with a supervisory role over the National Assembly.  Governors have expressed opinion that the Senate is an irrelevant irritant and duplication.

Of course, it is a fact that other than the first two initials mischievously appended to CDF, the kitty is a devolved fund.  Githu told the Bomas team that MPs had no role administering a devolved fund.

The role of MPs is representation, legislation and oversight. They cannot continue to pretend to oversight a fund they manage through their stooges in the constituency CDF committees.  It is ironical that one of the proposals at Bomas is to entrench similar illegal tokenism to be baptised the Ward Development Fund. 

It is also suspicious that there is “emerging consensus” that politicians must be involved in the hiring of the national elections team. The Bomas talks were never about the people.

— The writer is the Political Editor at People Daily.

[email protected]