IS THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS THE ONLY REMEDY TO THE KENYAN POLITICAL QUAGMIRE

'IS THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW OUR ONLY REMEDY The constitutional review has been a song sang since early 90s by majority of Kenyans under the leadership of a number of civil society organizations like the National Constitutional Executive Council. Activities of such organizations helped us attain an awareness level to most of Kenyans on the importance of reforms through constitutional review. However it’s unfortunate that it’s almost two decades since the introduction of multipartyism whose campaign was spearheaded by a number of the current people in government. The constitutional review process has instead become a serious impediment to any reforms in this country because Kenyans have been made to believe that real change can only come through a constitutional review. this has also given opportunity to those who are anti reforms to have a clear picture of what would stand on their way in maintain the status quo.therefore the anti reform forces who are beneficiaries of corruption which includes irregular land allocations to use all their energies and positions of power to ensure there are no reforms that might interfere with their comfort. It’s also notable that most of those who agitated for change while in opposition changed their language immediately they got opportunities to serve in government. It’s a known fact too that a number of non governmental organizations exist on the sole reason of pursuing constitutional changes in the country and the general feeling is that they will be rendered insignificant once the we have a new constitution. Given these circumstances, Kenyans need to redefine a new way of implementing reforms or rather having a new constitution without involving the usual stakeholders who have been squabbling over the way to the reforms. If we still believe that reforms can only be achieved through constitutional review then we need to have different players other than politicians or those with vested interests. It has been a daunting task for Kenyans who even went on to believe that by voting in pro reform leaders into parliament, it was going to be easier to have a people driven constitution which was eventually a proven futility citing examples of Prof Kivutha Kibwana’s days in parliament and the current presence of the likes of Mutava Musyimi and others. It’s therefore evident that all Kenyans in positions of leadership are obstacles to constitutional change in Kenya. This is the same cause of our inability to attain this long fought potential historic achievement in 2005 when we went to the referendum because of tension and vested interest s by leaders from different sectors of political and civil society leadership. In the same vain was the national accord that was signed by the President and the Prime Minister in order to halt clashes that resulted fro a disputed presidential election. For the same reasons of the process driven by a political class, the Serena talks went into disarray immediately the agenda on power sharing was cleared. Agenda four which had a lot to do with the reforms is now being treated as a minor issue by the same political class that agreed on power sharing. It’s for this reason that I believe that our political class will never address issues on agenda four. This is the reason as to why some people have decided to agitate for piecemeal reforms which have still been rendered useless because of legal arguments based on current constitutional references. It is therefore imperative that we have a radical approach on the process or else we will never have a new constitution in this country and that means we will never be able to address reforms in this country whose implementation is based on constitutional interpretation. When NARC government took reigns of power from Moi, Kenyans were very optimistic and Kibaki who those days seemed to still care about his reputation as the hope for change, created a number of commissions which included the Ndung’u commission on land that produced the report which can now only be termed as having been a public relations exercise. It has since been a nightmare to implement because there is no mandatory constitutional obligation for its implementation. So it can authoritatively be argued that in a way the constitutional review process has in itself been an obstacle to reforms in this country. The same forces that have been ensuring that we don’t get a new constitution are still very influential in the country. Therefore if we divorced the constitution from the political class, it may be easier for us to achieve change or alternatively, Kenyans have a duty to think of another way of achieving change other than the constitution. It’s mind boggling conscientiousness to every progressive force in this country. Changing the process or the method is the only right direction we must take to achieve change. FWAMBA NC FWAMBA BOX 41046, Nairobi 0736170218 http://kenyayoungvotersalliance.blogspot.com http://fwambancfwamba.wordpress.com http://fwambancfwamba.blogspot.com