HON. WILLIAM RUTO MUST ANCHOR CAMPAIGN ON DRAFT CONSTITUTION IN THE BREAST OF HONESTY.

If the words of Mario Vargas Llosa (1936- ) are anything to go by, then real politics has indeed very little to do with ideas, values, and imagination. It has everything to do with maneuvers, intrigues, plots, paranoia’s, betrayals and a great deal of calculation. It has no little cynicism. In sum it is a kind of con game. In Kenya, one only needs to confirm the truth of this assertion by just paying a little attention to the goings on in the current constitutional making exercise. The referendum campaign is so crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions. In fact, it would be an understatement to say that there is a certain class of politicians whose mendacity is simply unparalleled. Take for instance Honorable William Ruto`s rhetoric that the electorate can reject the draft constitution in the 2010 August 4th plebiscite and enact another one in a span of three months. Ruto knows too well that he is perpetuating a blatant falsehood. Perhaps it would do Ruto a lot of good were he to stretch his memory a little bit further to 2002. The NARC government then promised the people of Kenya that it would promulgate a new constitution in 90 days. It took the NARC government three solid years to come up with a draft constitution and even then vested interests saw the draft rejected at the referendum. When the Wako draft was rejected at the plebiscite, the government did not invite people to gloss over the rejected draft constitution with a view to removing the clauses that they disagreed upon so that another referendum could be held immediately thereafter. The entire process had to begin afresh. It has taken another five solid years (two of which are under the grand coalition government) not forgetting that the process has consumed not less than 9 billion of the hard earned tax payers` money for the government to go through another constitutional making process. Like 2005, the country will have to wait for at least two years for political temperatures to subside before taking another stab at the process. And even after that we have to wait for a complete economic recovery before embarking on the process again. This obviously mean that the country will have to head into the 2012 general elections under the current flawed constitution that led to the 2007 post election violence. Honestly speaking, many Kenyans of goodwill shudder at the prospects of the country heading into another election without a constitution that has proper checks and balances. It is because of this that I beseech him for once to anchor his campaign in the breast of honesty. For the sake of the citizenry of this country, let him think for once that he could be wrong. Currently, we are at the brink of enacting a new constitution and it were better if those who feel that there certain clauses they disagree with were to wait for its promulgation then immediately after embark on amendments. TOME FRANCIS, BUMULA. http://twitter/tomefrancis.com

DRAFT CONSTITUTION NOT FOR WHIMSICAL ANTICS AND FRANTIC SLAPSTICK COMEDY.

Even as the state intelligentsia (in a bid to avoid being seen as sharing in the guilt) fumbles with the investigations to unearth the bizarre faceless minions behind the inclusion of the two noxious words (national security) in the bill of rights, a number of persons—both public officials and private citizens have expressed fear of the existence of a very dangerous conspiracy aimed at cutting a swath through the efforts at enacting a new constitution. It is emerging that the motivation behind the naysayers campaign is not because the draft constitution is fundamentally flawed as they would want the unsuspecting public to believe. (For if it was then they would not need a conspiracy to make the electorate reject it.) Their rejection of the draft constitution is informed purely by their collective phobia for a possible Raila presidency. It is quite disheartening for politicians to let a very sensitive and costly constitution making exercise degenerate into an exercise for settling personal scores. Granted, Prime Minister (Raila Odinga) is one the most tumultuous and controversial figures in the political history of this nation. His fiery speeches have made him a well-known and popular figure throughout Kenya and the world. His single-minded pursuit of better governance has won him loyal admirers and implacable political enemies. It is precisely because of his growing political presence and his critical stance on governance that has made many political figures shudder at the prospects of his presidency. Today, many of the anti Raila crusaders are the former YK92 operatives. It is instructive to note that at the time when the KANU apologists were snoozing courtesy of KANU`s political furs, Raila was a “political criminal” who was incarcerated because of his political convictions. Despite the incarceration, his hopes for a better Kenya were never dashed. He always drew inspiration from the fact that the world over, the history of human progress is at the same time the history of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn, and in Kenya, the brighter dawn was always considered illegal, outside of the law by the inimical KANU apologists that presided over the withering away of our state. With the Kibaki succession politics gaining momentum, the move by the YK92 operatives alongside other KANU apologists to begin coalescing with a view to becoming power brokers is not unexpected. They willfully believe that the draft constitution, with its clear checks and balances, will make it virtually impossible for anyone to stand in the way of the democratic will of the people of Kenya. To them, a Raila presidency will mean that historical injustices will certainly be addressed. The panacea in containing a possible Raila presidency lies in their incessant opposition to institutional reforms as well as in becoming stumbling blocks in the country`s efforts to enact a new constitution. In so doing, they hope to have a carte blanche to rig the 2012 presidential elections and then invoke the national security clause (which is in the current constitution) to kill, beat up, and silence those who will be patriotic enough to stand up against this treachery. The question that is increasingly being asked by Kenyans of goodwill is whether whimsical antics and frantic slapstick comedy ought to be sufficient grounds for the rejection of long sought after draft constitution? The draft constitution cannot be and will never be the theatre of the absurd. I take it that you will be sincere enough and honest enough and brave enough to render a verdict according to your convictions, beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. Suffice to say that each one of us is an atom in the incessant human struggle towards the light that shines in the darkness—the ideal of economic, political and spiritual liberation of mankind! TOME FRANCIS, BUMULA. http://twitter.com/tomefrancis