The push for a 48th county has spilled over into campaigns for next year’s elections, revived demands for new electoral zones, and rekindled the controversy during the adoption of devolution.
Ahead of next month’s debate in the Senate on the proposal to amend the constitution, grievances arising from the stalled Building Bridges Initiative’s clamour to create additional 70 constituencies and boundary delimitation that the electoral commission has said will only be completed after 2022 elections are resurfacing.
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2021, seeks to split the expansive Kitui County into two to bring services closer to the people.
If passed, it will also be considered by the National Assembly, and should it navigate the treacherous political waters in Parliament on time, the proponent plans to ride on the General Election — having the question as a seventh ballot- to avoid a costly referendum.
Apart from proposing the creation of a new Mwingi County, the Bill seeks to increase the membership of the National Assembly and Senate.
The National Assembly will have an additional woman rep, to be elected in Mwingi County, while the Senate will have three more members.
These are the elected one and two others the Bill proposes are elected to represent special interest groups.
“As currently constituted, the larger Mwingi region has three constituencies. These are Mwingi Central, Mwingi North and Mwingi West. The proposed new Mwingi County shall also include Kitui East constituency. The four constituencies have a cumulative population of 558,000 people according to the 2019 national census report. This population is spread in twenty-one wards,” reads the Bill sponsored by Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua.
Review of boundaries
But it is the proposal to have an extra county that is likely to rekindle grievances advanced by minority groups and pile pressure on the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission (IEBC) to accelerate the review of boundaries at a time when it’s preparing for the General Election.
Yesterday, Mr Wambua said he is determined to have the new county created and promised to take all steps, including playing politics, to ensure the people of Mwingi have their way.
“We shall force any presidential candidate who wants the votes from the people of Mwingi to commit themselves to supporting the Bill,” he said, adding, he is keen to have the Bill passed by Parliament so that IEBC can have the question on its approval included as part of the General Election slated for August 9, 2022.
“I don’t think it makes sense to incur expenditure on the referendum when a seventh ballot can be included in the next General Election,” Mr Wambua said, adding that it would also give IEBC time to delimit the boundaries for the new county.
The push for the new county is likely to rekindle the emotions that characterised constitution-making process and reopen debate on the thorny issue of domination and marginalisation in counties.
For instance, the Kuria community has complained of being marginalised in Migori County and have openly called for the creation of their own county to address what they have termed as discrimination of the community since independence.
The community has argued that devolution has not addressed their plight as they are not equitably represented in Migori County.
“The creation of Kuria County had been considered in the Bomas draft only to be dropped in Naivasha. We had put the same proposal before the BBI team. Our proposal was heavily referenced but (later) dropped. There is only one sentence that made it to the report,” the community said in a report it submitted to the BBI task force. Kuria East MP Mathias Robi yesterday said the Kuria community has suffered greatly under devolution and that they may be forced to commandeer Mr Wambua’s Bill if that is what it will take for them to have their county.
Structure of devolution
Although the Bill will be referred to the National Assembly should it pass in the Senate, it cannot be amended.
A constitutional Bill is passed in its original form in its entirety or rejected in total. Mr Robi, who is in his second term, argued that he has what it takes to be governor, but because of numbers he cannot contemplate contesting the seat.
Kuria leaders have argued that Taita Taveta, Marsabit, Lamu and Tharaka-Nithi enjoy county status yet they have a population almost equal to that of the Kuria community. The debate on the structure of devolution was a controversial subject during the constitution making process. The 2005 Bomas draft had proposed a structure modelled along 14 regions, with Nairobi as a metropolitan capital city.
But the system changed in the stages that followed the 2007/08 post-election violence specifically in 2010 during Parliamentary Select Committee on constitutional review sessions in Naivasha.
The intermediate level of regions disappeared. It was taken away by the Committee of Experts in their second draft, partly because the functions of that level had not been spelled out clearly and the fear of a huge bureaucracy.
With the removal of the regional governments, devolution was thus pegged on the original districts.
There were problems with districts. At the time the constitution-making process started in 2001 during President Moi’s tenure, there were 74 districts. By 2010, under President Kibaki, the number had shot up to 210.
The High Court in 2009 had held that the only legally created districts were the 47 that were in an Act of 1992. As a result of the court order, the Committee of Experts decided that the 47 districts should be the basis for the structure of devolution the country has today.
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