President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga should not open the Building Bridges Initiative report for amendments.
This is not the only amendment that can be done to the Constitution. Every time you come up with an amendment to the Constitution, you must have something that you want to achieve.
In my understanding, proposed amendments in the BBI are meant to achieve three things:
One, it is supposed to do away with electoral-based violence by expanding the executive in a way that creates inclusivity where every time you want to run for president, you are forced to form a coalition with four other people.
It is different from the current situation where only two of you can form a coalition then after elections there are disputes that force you to get into a post-election coalition when lives have been lost and property destroyed.
The other camp must also form coalitions where they will bring at least four partners. So we will not have ethnic coalitions of Luos, Kambas and Kalenjins, for instance, forming an exclusive club.
Two, BBI seeks to sort out the issue of pesa mashinani. We have major healthcare and agriculture crises. These are devolved functions. For us to take care of them, we have to send more money to the counties.
Finally, the amendments try to deal with the issue of one man one vote one shilling. It is trying to balance the votes by bringing multiple representation – if your constituency has large numbers, you get more than one MP.
According to the drivers of BBI, these are the things they are trying to achieve. On these three things, there is a majority agreement.
There are some people who think we need to add other things. My proposal is, let them wait or create their own amendments. BBI amendments deal with specific things. Those others calling for consensus have other issues that we do not agree on right now.
Why don’t we amend the three we agree on and continue building consensus on the things we disagree on and then hopefully come up with another amendment at a future date? We cannot stall an entire process because a couple of people are not happy.
The Nyeri Town MP spoke to the Star on phone
