A New Cabinet for Kenya ?
Kenya now has a coalition government; but wait a minute have we not been here before! In 2003 after Raila had joined forces to oust President Moi, a coalition government was formed that eventually disintegrated due to results of the referendum on the constitution . We hope this time the results are not the same.
In the elections of 2003, Raila had made an Memorandum of Understanding with Kibaki, that would have created the position of Prime Minister and then a new constitution was to come about within 6 months to a year after the new government was in power. Of course non of this took place, and now we seem to have come a full circle.
Today, Raila is the new Prime Minister; the constitution was changed to make all this legal; however forming a new cabinet has been another matter. Soon after Kibaki “became” president he formed a partial cabinet of 17 ministers. Of course like any good leader who was the first to the prize, he took all the plum ministries.According to the agreement that Kofi Annan and President Kikwete helped bring about, the coalition government was to be divided 50-50; but the mechanics of how this was to be done was never agreed to. The result of this has been constant back-room jockeying and politicking by members in both PNU and ODM.
Depending on who gets what ministry, this will determine how much influence and change they can bring about in the country before 2012, the next election. The other question that has not been answered yet, is “how big should the cabinet be?” Wanagaari Mathai and others propose a lean cabinet of only 24 ministers; PNU looks as if it leans towards a cabinet of 44 ministers. ODM would probably settle for 34. In order to conserve the countries financial resources, a leaner cabinet of 24 performance accountable ministries would be the way to go.
Whatever number of ministries that is decided upon, the coalition government will still have to come with a way of how to pick them. A friend recently suggested a simple but fair way of choosing the cabinet. “Why not have Kibaki and Raila come together; toss a coin and whoever wins the toss picks first, and then they alternate until the agreed upon number of ministries is reached .” Now, politics being politics this is probably way too simple a way for them to take, and so we have to await the results of the negotiations going on between the two parties of PNU and ODM.