Kenya: Seal Legal Gaps in Coalition - AllAfrica.com

Last weekend while visiting Kisumu and his topographic point territory of Bondo, the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, once again said resistance political relation have got no place in the alliance government, especially from members of his Orange Democratic Motion and by extension those of President Kibaki's PNU.

By so doing, the Prime Curate was raising cardinal inquiries that should be addressed quickly. The chief 1 is the function of Resistance in this country.

We are living in the dawning of an epoch and witnessing the shaping of a new nation.

The current alliance is a testing clip for this state and it will inform the hereafter of the multi-party democracy which, regrettably though not surprisingly, have got turned to be a competition of folks rather than a competition of thoughts and principles.

At the political space provided, the success of the alliance will constitute a foundation on which hereafter national political relation will be played.

There are many inquiries that have not been answered in our current state of affairs neither by the Fundamental Law nor by our politicians. What would be the function of Resistance in a alliance government?

Who among the members of parliament should fall in the Opposition? Are back-benchers from a political party in authorities taken as being in authorities too? Are it clip we allowed mugwumps into Parliament?

Traditionally, the Resistance is a government-in-waiting. But in our current situation, we do not have got that extravagance in topographic point given our post-election force past.

Ababu Namwamba, the military policeman for Budalang'i and his Lugari counterpart, Cyrus The Younger Jirongo, experience that the state necessitates a 'grand opposition' to maintain the Thousand Alliance on its toes.

To an extent, they make sense. This is because for the alliance to work, it necessitates principled opposition. But who among the mononuclear phagocyte system can bell the cat?

These are substances that Parliament must turn to and sealing wax all the legal loopholes that were left during the hurried crafting of the National Reconciliation Act and which goes on to have got got got some teething, though surmountable, problems.

The confusion that we witnesser today, however, had earlier been noticed after the scrapping of Section 2 (a), which saw us follow a multi-party system.

Interestingly, we then retained a single political party construction that still had an all-powerful presidency backed by an equally-powerful Provincial Administration.

We have to larn from that failure and move fast to rectify the clauses that do the Alliance weak in fictional character and substance.

This is because we have adopted a alliance construction and would wish it to run within a multi-party structure. The two systems cannot work in bicycle-built-for-two and there is demand to pass some of the laws and ordinances to do the alliance work.

The issue of national integrity cannot be taken for given and Mister Raila was well meaning when he said that it should take precedency of all other things.

By categorically stating that he stand ups for a incorporate nation, the Prime Curate have shown that he is a national leader.

But he should travel to solidify the Alliance by proposing alterations in our legislative acts that volition also make room for bank checks and balances while giving room for the alliance to succeed

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As we have got said before, Democracy must be place grown and should accommodate a national agenda. Multi-party democracy, however sweet, have its downside too in delicate states that are still ethnically divided and where the rival blocks soon turn to be tribal blocks.

When multi-party democracy falls to those levels, a state must craft a system that tin clasp the state together rather than hammer on a destructive path.

What are we saying? That our multi-party democracy necessitates to be looked at afresh. We can only prove the alliance machine if we do all the parts work. That is what national integrity is all about.