President’s speech - What’s it for under the Constitution?

What is the point of what tends to be called the State of the Nation address?

Is it a form of accountability to Parliament? Or to the people? Is ii intended to build relationships with Parliament? Is it piece of self-advocacy or electioneering? Or is it intended to push presidents to reflect thoughtfully on what has been done? Or to publicise their programme for the future?

THE CONSTITUTION

Article 132, about the President’s powers, says the President must make several addresses.  One is an address to the opening of each newly elected Parliament.

Then he must address “a special sitting of Parliament once every year”.  Once every year he must “report, in an address to the nation, on all the measures taken and the progress achieved in the realisation of the national values.”

A report on this must be published in the Gazette. And there must be, once a year “a report for debate on the progress made in fulfilling the international obligations of the Republic”.  This is submitted to the National Assembly – not “Parliament”. 

You might imagine this idea is inspired by the American President’s annual speech usually called the State of the Union address. In fact, these provisions were in the various constitution drafts, not having changed since the Bomas draft in 2004. The recommendation then was to have a parliamentary system with a president who would be largely ceremonial and a symbol of national unity.

How much choice over the content of these speeches was not very clear. But the scheme would be for the President to have certain more active roles as part of the system of checks and balances – and it seems that the speeches were part of this, except perhaps the one to a newly elected Parliament.

The origins clearly lie in the traditional speech from the Throne when the British monarch opens each (usually annual) session of Parliament – the State Opening of Parliament. The tradition evolved gradually and is centuries old.

As time went on and monarchs had less and less to do with the everyday business of government, the speech ceased to be written by the monarch and became the government’s programme for the coming year, especially its law making programme (the particular business of Parliament). 

This is easily seen from the current queen’s speech in May this year: Every paragraph included the word “will” - as in “My Government will introduce legislation on….”.  Any comment on the past is implied.

This idea was picked up the United States Constitution in 1787. It said that the President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”  

It has not always been done in person, rather than a message in writing. Indeed, one President said a speech in person was too British too monarchical for him. At the time British monarch gave their own speeches and delivered directions rather than recommendations.

Nowadays the American President’s speech is a very political speech, selling himself and his ideas to the nation (because of course it is broadcast just like ours). The Queen’s speech, however, is an announcement, mostly of law-making proposals in brief. It last about 10 minutes.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

Any idea of the Kenyan President being an independent observer on behalf of the public went quite out of the window when the Parliamentary Select Committee changed the system of government from a parliamentary system (with separate head of state) to a presidential system with all head of state and head of government powers in the hands of a single person.

But no change was made to that article about presidential speeches and reports. These included the address to the nation on the national values.

In 2017, the President addressed the new Parliament (and State House even called it the State Opening of Parliament rather in the British monarchical style). But it did not set out any programme - the President was in a bit of difficulty over this since he was keeping the seat warm until the second election the following month, in view of the Supreme Court’s decision in the presidential petition case.  His 2013 speech did include a substantial programme for policy and law of the new government.

And he has given what is called the State of the Nation address (in the US presidential style) each year, including that one last week.

He seems to have rolled the various annual events into one. At the end of State of the Nation address last week, he announced that he was submitting to the speakers the two reports – on values and international obligations. He added a third: A report on the state of the security of Kenya, which must be submitted by the National Security Council (that the President chairs) to Parliament – Article 240.

In fact, he added a fourth – not a constitutional duty: Report on the Kenya Business Climate Reforms Milestones, which he said is on small and medium size enterprises. This he did not seem to be asking Parliament to discuss – just to have it on record.

So now we have an insipid speech to the new Parliament (at least in 2017) and a largely self-congratulatory annual speech on the so-called state of the nation. We have little information about what laws the government intends to put before Parliament in the coming year. This year’s speech listed a few with very little indication of why they are supposed to be important.

I am not quite sure what the real point of it is. The National Assembly and the Senate did debate the speech for a while. Predictably, most who spoke praised the President, tending to repeat what he had said - even members who said they were opposing. 

A few made major complaints about what was missing (notably corruption). And several got in short plugs for their own counties or constituencies about lack of roads, schools, electricity or health facilities. In short debates in each house – which then went off on vacation till 25th January – it was not feasible to do more. It was an unstructured and rather pointless debate. Incidentally, the UK Parliament debates the Queen’s speech for about six days, theme by theme.

PRESIDENT’S REPORTS

The oddest aspect is those other reports. This was formally a speech to Parliament. The President addressed “Mr Speaker” and “Honourable members” – not “fellow citizens” as he does when talking directly to Kenyans. From a purely formal point of view, he should not have submitted the report on values and principles during this speech. It was not to the people. And  the report was not really in the speech.

In the speech itself, he said nothing of any substance about these other reports. There is a special bureaucracy to deal with national values. Last year, this report was 300 pages long. But it is a catalogue of activities apparently designed to show that every public body, including the First Lady, did something to further national values (373 submitted reports). There is no evaluation, no examination and no critique.

Nor is there any mention in that report of the work of the courts in using the values to help decide cases. Courts have often used the values and principles as part of their reasoning for deciding cases.

A huge amount of effort seems to go into something that is of limited value and gets hardly any attention.

Perhaps the onus rests on organisations outside Parliament to do reality checks on what the President said. In fact his speech was really directed at the public. There is little point in addressing Parliament on these issues. Members of both Houses have their positions – and they will not change them because of a speech, particularly from a lame duck President.

When the Kenyan government reports to a human rights body, NGOs do “shadow reports”. Maybe we need something similar for the President’s speeches.