Speculation is rife that President Uhuru Kenyatta is constructing a government of national unity to, inter alia, get rid of the Deputy President problem once and for all.
President and Deputy William Ruto, once dress-alike and high-fiving pals and allies, do not see eye to eye on a single issue. Indeed, the President has reduced his Number Two to a DINO – Deputy In Name Only.
The ensuing volatility often threatens to burst into open civil war in the governing Jubilee Party. The DP is forever sidelined, sidestepped and blindsided regarding serious or minor State, presidential, ministerial or political events.
But does this justify a government of national unity? No. We would need a government of national unity if the government, party of government and Parliament were paralysed by crisis, or if Kenya faced an existential threat.
We would need a unity government if we were coming out of war, or going into one, and the President needed every hand on the deck, to successfully execute every aspect of the war or post-war recovery strategy.
Put another way, we would need a unity government to focus all the attention, time, minds and resources to finding solutions to a massive problem made worse by a crisis at the heart of government and among the citizenry.
Is there such a crisis? No. That Jubilee is divided goes without saying. But has that crippled or paralysed or put the government in crisis?
No. Is the government divided? No. Isolated, in office but not in power, the DP is a dead man walking.
Is Parliament in crisis? No. And even before Jubilee acquired the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Wiper Democratic Movement (WDM) as accessories in 2018, it could pass or shoot down any bill because it has a crushing parliamentary majority.
Are Kenyans divided? No. They are solidly united behind the President and government as they battle Covid-19.
Kenyans expect the national leadership to use this opportunity to address and redress Kenya’s other pressing challenges.
This is especially because the measures taken to contain Covid-19 have severely limited their ability to put food on the table. And, truth be told: it is politicians who divide Kenyans.
The most recent culprits are the President and his newfound buddy Raila Odinga. They pushed Kenya to the brink of a second post-election bloodbath with their negative campaigning in 2017.
Is the expected government of national unity really about uniting Kenyans? Zilch. This is about the transfer of power from the clique led by President Kenyatta, to another currently coalescing around Mr Odinga, and expanding the Executive.
Unity, in Kenyan political parlance, is a code word for mobilisation of the citizenry to rally around a certain individual or group for the propagation of the individual’s or group’s interests.
The word unity is to the Kenyan politician what new is to marketers. A magic word. So President Kenyatta may indeed unveil a coalition government to bring together disparate individuals and entities to serve his immediate purpose.
Recall that Mr Odinga led his then National Development Party into the Kanu-led government in 2002 after a long courtship fuelled by his defeat in the 1997 presidential poll.
Reason given? To unite Kenya. Real reason? Then as now Mr Odinga was looking for a path to power. Blocked, he fled only months later.
Mr Odinga led his ODM into cooperation with Jubilee in 2018 and was swiftly copied by Kalonzo Musyoka and WDM.
It was ODM’s resistance to and of the government which forced President Kenyatta into a détente with Mr Odinga.
This detente and its issue, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), have been camouflaged as tools of unity yet they exist to manage the 2022 presidential succession.
A coalition, or even unity, government will be a phase on the managed road to the favoured 2022 dispensation.
However, in 2017, Kenyans elected Jubilee to govern and the vanquished National Super Alliance parties to keep it honest.
Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka abdicated these roles, and the President turned on his deputy hardly six months after the General Election.
Now a sea change in governance, a referendum and a General Election, in quick succession, are on the cards. All of which put Kenya on an election footing for three years.
In my view, Kenya should have a one-time unity government following the 2022 General Election, to define and lay the foundation and terms for a government of inclusivity to be formed after every General Election.
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