Post by miguna on Dec 7, 2005 3:07:34 GMT 3
DEMOCRATIC LESSONS FROM CANADA
By MIGUNA MIGUNA* - © 4 December 2005
Canadians are going to the polls on 23 January 2006. This election was called by Paul Martin, the Prime Minister of Canada, last week, following his government’s loss of a non-confidence vote in Parliament on 29 November 2005. He announced the new elections less than a day after his parliamentary defeat. That is true democracy at work.
Mr. Martin leads the governing Liberal Party of Canada. He came to power on 12 December 2003. He had been elected to replace Jean Chrétien, who had resigned as both the Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada before completing his third term in office. Soon after being enthroned as both the leader of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Martin called for elections in order to obtain a fresh mandate from the people. He was uncomfortable governing on a mandate that had been given to him by his predecessor; a mandate he had simply inherited by virtue of winning the Liberal Party’s leadership race. When the polls closed in that election on 28 June 2004, Mr. Martin’s party emerged the winner, albeit by a thin margin. The Liberal Party subsequently functioned as a minority government. In order to pass important legislation, Mr. Martin had to negotiate and consult with other parties.
This was akin to former president Moi resigning before his term expired, leaving power for Uhuru Kenyatta. I am not sure whether a Kenyan politician would have gone to the electorate for a mandate after inheriting power.
Mr. Paul Martin has called for elections on 23 January 2006, less than two years into his mandate, not because he wanted to. Neither is there a constitutional requirement that compelled him to do so. He did so, first and foremost, as a democratic and moral requirement. He also did so because without a fresh mandate, he would have become a lame duck prime minister; a hobbling leader with no real ability to introduce and pass legislation in Parliament.
Without being able to set legislative agenda, Mr. Martin would have simply either resigned himself to “surviving” through endless deals with opposition parties or co-operating with one or two of them. Even before calling fresh elections, Mr. Martin was a leader of a minority government, who had managed to survive through backroom deals with and concessions to the New Democratic Party (NDP). Essentially, it was the NDP that had managed to prop up the government in parliament in exchange for progressive legislative initiatives on health care, labour and other issues that the NDP cherished. Paul Martin also called the January 2006 elections because of his eagerness to leave a legacy. He could not do this effectively as a lame duck prime minister.
But Paul Martin also had other reasons for calling fresh elections.
First, he had promised the Canadian people last year that if the just-concluded Gomery Inquiry (an inquiry into how the Quebec Referendum of 1995 was run by the Federal Government, which was then headed by Jean Chrétien of the Federal Liberal Party of Canada) implicated the governing Liberal Party of Canada in any wrongdoing (such as misuse of public resources or abuse of office, among other things), he would call fresh elections in order for Canadians to give his government a new mandate.
Secondly, three weeks following Justice Gomery’s release of the inquiry report that roundly vilified former top Liberal Party officials, including the former Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, the three opposition parties in parliament, the Bloc Quebecois (Bloc), the NDP and the Conservative Party of Canada (Conservatives) converged on Parliament Hill, and passed a non-confidence vote on Paul Martin’s government.
Unlike in Kenya where the Kibaki government lost a referendum vote by more than one million votes, yet rather than seek a new mandate, he unilaterally fired his entire cabinet and suspended parliament (presumably so that he could avoid a non-confidence vote in parliament), Paul Martin faced his Waterloo magnanimously. Not only did he take to the national radio and TV and publicly apologized to the Canadian citizens for the ills Justice Gomery had heaped at the feet of his party - even though he was personally exonerated of any wrongdoing - he immediately announced an election date within a day after his defeat in parliament.
There were no musical chairs, promptings or cajoling. No delegations went to 24 Sussex Drive (the equivalent of State House, Nairobi) for consultations with Paul Martin. No unsolicited advice were liberally offered through the media to Mr. Martin. No foreign diplomats urged him to take the plunge.
As required by the well understood democratic practice, Paul Martin accepted Justice Gomery’s indictment of his party and made good on his earlier commitment or promise to his citizens. Mr. Martin sought a fresh mandate without hesitation. He did so almost immediately. There was no suspense. The country was not made to wait as the Prime Minister “consulted.” No explanations, circumlocutions or red herrings were offered to the people by those in power.
Once Justice Gomery’s report was read and digested and understood to be a criticism of how the Liberal Party of Canada handled the “sponsorship affair” (as the 1995 Quebec referendum has come to be known), Paul Martin swung into action.
Senior bureaucrats faced and are still facing criminal prosecutions. Prominent names were forwarded to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for criminal investigations. A thorough purge was launched of all those implicated in the scum. In addition, Mr. Martin ordered that the Liberal Party of Canada refunds the Federal Government of all funds that Justice Gomery found to have been misappropriated or misused by its officials during the sponsorship scandal.
In 1995, the Government of Canada had taken a simple question to Quebecers for a vote. The question read as follows: “Should the Province of Quebec Separate from Canada?” Citizens of Canada residing in the Province of Quebec were then required to vote Yes or No to this simple question. The vote was restricted to those living in Quebec for the simple reason that democratically, this question had to be answered by those people. Had this question been left open to the entire Canadian population, the vote would have been skewed in favour of the rest of Canada because whereas Quebec was one province, there were twelve other provinces and territories in Canada that were predominantly English. Traditionally, English Canada has always voted to retain Quebec within Canada, whereas the public mood in the French speaking province of Quebec has varied over time, depending on how the French Quebecers felt that they were being treated or accommodated with the Canadian Federation.
The reason why this question was taken to the Quebec people for a vote was because there was an increasingly large number of Quebecers that had been demanding independence from Canada since confederation in 1867. As the number of Quebecers that believed in the independence of Quebec grew, so was their ability to organize and make their sovereignty demands on the Federal government. Quebecers had formed political parties whose main objective was Quebec independence. The Party Quebecois (PQ) and the Bloc were two such sovereignty parties.
Whereas the PQ was a Provincial Party (and at the time of the 1995 Quebec referendum, the governing party in the Province of Quebec), the Bloc was a federal opposition party, sitting at the Federal Parliament in Ottawa, but, unlike other opposition parties elsewhere, the Bloc’s role was not to acquire political power in Canada; it was only mandated to create conditions that would facilitate a break-up of Canada, with the Province of Quebec seceding from the rest of Canada as an independent state or country. Yet, the Bloc still receives funding from the Federal Government, just like any other party.
Compared to Kenya, this would be similar to any one of the eight Provinces of Kenya, for example, receiving government funding, in order to promote its sovereignty. Is such a thought unthinkable? For if Kenyans are not able to fathom such a thought, then one can argue that we are still along way from appreciating and fully practicing democracy in its purest form.
Yet, there is absolutely no rational justification for our inability to embrace democracy in all its true forms and colours. The argument I have heard repeatedly is that we are “a young democracy” and that we must be given time to learn, grow and mature. While this argument may seem valid at first blush, it contains within it dangerous germs of (neo)colonialism, racism and white supremacist presumptions.
Kenya is as old as Germany, the UK, France or Canada. Kenyans, as a people, or human species, are as old (if not older than) the Germans, the English, the French or the Irish for that matter. Our histories and cultures, as a people, are as old, glamorous and dynamic, as any other. Subsequently, to argue that we are “young” and need to grow implies that Kenyans (or Africans for that matter) either chanced on this world after the so-called mature democracies or that our systems of thought, organization and governance are inferior, younger and less developed to those assumed to be well developed, civilized and established. The argument that our country or continent or democracy is “young” is as illogical as it is wrong-headed.
In my view, the issue is not about the age, development or lack thereof. The issue has been our collective refusal to be honest, consistent, transparent, accountable and selfless in serving our people. It is usually our untamed, unrestrained and gluttonous greed for power, wealth – virtually everything that was meant to be shared - that we have confused with “youth,” “lack of development,” et cetera. There is nothing unique about the Germans, English, French or Irish, for that matter, that makes their systems of government superior to ours. We should just be as capable of practicing democracy in the same serious manner as these people, cultures and countries have.
What we need is a change of guard and orientation. This must be accompanied by a change in thought, ideology and level of commitment. In order to effect fundamental changes, Kenyans must stop vilifying politics as the game of the mad, corrupt or crooks. Public service is an honourable profession all over the world. We cannot leave it for the most corrupt and incorrigible.
During the 1995 Quebec Referendum, the governing Liberal Party of Canada, then led by Mr. Chrétien, with Paul Martin serving as the Finance Minister, saturated the Province of Quebec with TV, radio, electronic and print promotions in support of the No side. Huge billboards and posters were everywhere. Large referendum rallies were organized. And through it all, government friendly Ad-agencies received slush funds from the government, some of them channeled through senior bureaucrats and politicians. This should sound very familiar to Kenyans, in view of Kiraitu’s announcement that the just-concluded referendum was a government project; that the government was going to use billions of tax-payer money to shake all corners of the country; and president Kibaki’s unprecedented attempts at bribing voters with public resources.
The Canadian Federal government (NO) side won the Quebec Referendum vote by 51%. The Quebec Separatists (Yes) side received 49% of the votes tallied. However, immediately after the results were announced, the Premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, who had lost to the No side, resigned. Not only was this not the right thing to do for Parizeau, it was what democratic practice demanded.
Notwithstanding the post-facto analysis of, or speculations about, the presumed real reasons for Parizeau’s resignation, one of the main explanations was that since he had lost a major battle in which he had publicly and repeatedly stated, during the referendum campaigns, that the Quebec majority favoured independence from Canada, his defeat (however narrow or thin) was an indication that he had lost legitimacy, mandate or any claim of being able to deliver the one important price his people coveted; and that was an independent state.
The instantaneous popular demand was that because he had failed to deliver independence to his people, Parizeau had to make room for someone else who could keep the independence dreams, hopes and aspirations burning. Since his mandate at the beginning was to deliver independence, his failure at the referendum signaled his failure to deliver the most important thing his people wanted. Consequently, he had lost the moral authority to continue governing his people. His attempts at blaming the “ethnic” vote (as he referred to immigrants and Jews) did not help matters. Rather than receive sympathy from his people, he was excruciated, pilloried and hanged.
This is exactly the same situation as the recently concluded Kenyan referendum. Just like with the Parizeau case in Canada, Kibaki lost the referendum vote on a crucial question; this was, whether or not the people of Kenyan would say Yes or No to the draft he had prepared and attempted to impose on the people.
The overwhelming No vote was therefore correctly interpreted as a vote of non-confidence in the Kibaki government. After all, his government had strongly campaigned for the draft, arguing that Kenyans should support it because it was “a government project.” Kibaki himself claimed that the draft was the best constitution in the world and that those opposed to it were foolish (or pumbavu) people who had simply not read it or were unable to understand it.
Kibaki staked his mandate on the just-concluded referendum and a rejection of it must be viewed as a rejection of his mandate. Similarly, it does not matter that Kibaki did not promise to resign if he lost the referendum. Even Parizeau had not promised to resign going into the 1995 Quebec referendum. In any event, Kibaki’s record on promises he has made, including those he actually appended his signature(s) to, would not encourage any Kenyan to expect him to honour them. Kibaki’s record as clear as a bright tropical noon sun.
Kibaki has been unable to honour an MOU he physically signed with the LDP. He dishonoured his public undertaking to ensure that the Bomas Draft Constitution was ratified within one hundred days of him taking power. And now, he just went over the two-week deadline he had decried as the time within which he would form a new government, following his cowardly firing of the entire cabinet.
There are some similarities between the way the losing Quebec premier reacted in 1995 with how key Banana team members such as Kiraitu, Nyachae, Kombo, Karume and Kibaki have reacted. Rather than publicly take responsibility for the loss and see it as a loss of public confidence in their abilities to deliver, they have chosen to blame those who have won.
This strategy, as we have learnt in the Quebec referendum situation, does not work very well in a democracy.
However, the after-effects of the 1995 Quebec referendum result erupted sporadically throughout Chrétien’s term. Hence, by the time Chrétien resigned about two years ago, there were strong popular demands for a full accounting of how his government had ran the referendum campaign. There were murmurs of financial irregularities, politically-connected contracts, corruption and even fraud.
As such, when Paul Martin became the Prime Minister less than two years ago, his first priority was to cleanse himself from any stench from the referendum rot. He quickly established an independent judicial inquiry, appointed a well-regarded Jurist, Justice Gomery, to head it, and set a deadline when the inquiry had to deliver its report. However, in order to show seriousness to this undertaking, and to effectively deflect attention from those who were accusing him of an attempt at a “whitewash”, Mr. Martin publicly promised to call a snap election if Justice Gomery found that the Liberal Part, which he had assumed leadership of, was involved in any wrongdoing. He also promised to resign if Judge Gomery implicated him in any of the alleged referendum ills.
When Judge Gomery’s report was finally delivered within schedule, Mr. Martin was not directly implicated. However, Judge Gomery made findings of wrongdoing against Mr. Martin’s predecessor, political party, former party functionaries and senior bureaucrats. On the same day that the report was released to the public, Mr. Martin addressed a press-conference at which he publicly apologized for the role of his party or party members in the debacle. He also expressed regret at the identified problems, infractions, loss of public funds, et cetera. He immediately recommended that the RCMP criminally investigate all allegations of wrongdoing, regardless of who was involved. Shortly afterwards, he stated that he was prepared to call elections, as soon as the opposition parties brought his government down through a non-confidence vote. Mr. Martin refused to delay the inevitable through backroom negotiations, musical chairs or co-option of opposition parties or parliamentarians. He did not take advantage of his constitutional powers to prorogue or suspend parliament.
And exactly two weeks following the delivery of the Gomery Report, the opposition parties passed a non-confidence vote on the government. On the very following day, Mr. Martin consulted with the Governor General of Canada, and announced an election day of 23 January 2006.
Unlike in Kenya where president Kibaki has taken a selfish approach by irregularly extending his stay in power in the face of an overwhelming vote against the “government project,” here in Canada, Mr. Martin has done what is required in any functioning democracy. Utilizing constitutional loopholes or weaknesses is not a true mark of statesmanship.
If Kibaki is unable to take the right decision, the people of Kenya should either force him to do so, or proceed to stake their claims on the democratic space in spite of him.
______________________________________________________________________
*The writer is a Barrister & Solicitor, in Toronto, Canada
By MIGUNA MIGUNA* - © 4 December 2005
Canadians are going to the polls on 23 January 2006. This election was called by Paul Martin, the Prime Minister of Canada, last week, following his government’s loss of a non-confidence vote in Parliament on 29 November 2005. He announced the new elections less than a day after his parliamentary defeat. That is true democracy at work.
Mr. Martin leads the governing Liberal Party of Canada. He came to power on 12 December 2003. He had been elected to replace Jean Chrétien, who had resigned as both the Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada before completing his third term in office. Soon after being enthroned as both the leader of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Martin called for elections in order to obtain a fresh mandate from the people. He was uncomfortable governing on a mandate that had been given to him by his predecessor; a mandate he had simply inherited by virtue of winning the Liberal Party’s leadership race. When the polls closed in that election on 28 June 2004, Mr. Martin’s party emerged the winner, albeit by a thin margin. The Liberal Party subsequently functioned as a minority government. In order to pass important legislation, Mr. Martin had to negotiate and consult with other parties.
This was akin to former president Moi resigning before his term expired, leaving power for Uhuru Kenyatta. I am not sure whether a Kenyan politician would have gone to the electorate for a mandate after inheriting power.
Mr. Paul Martin has called for elections on 23 January 2006, less than two years into his mandate, not because he wanted to. Neither is there a constitutional requirement that compelled him to do so. He did so, first and foremost, as a democratic and moral requirement. He also did so because without a fresh mandate, he would have become a lame duck prime minister; a hobbling leader with no real ability to introduce and pass legislation in Parliament.
Without being able to set legislative agenda, Mr. Martin would have simply either resigned himself to “surviving” through endless deals with opposition parties or co-operating with one or two of them. Even before calling fresh elections, Mr. Martin was a leader of a minority government, who had managed to survive through backroom deals with and concessions to the New Democratic Party (NDP). Essentially, it was the NDP that had managed to prop up the government in parliament in exchange for progressive legislative initiatives on health care, labour and other issues that the NDP cherished. Paul Martin also called the January 2006 elections because of his eagerness to leave a legacy. He could not do this effectively as a lame duck prime minister.
But Paul Martin also had other reasons for calling fresh elections.
First, he had promised the Canadian people last year that if the just-concluded Gomery Inquiry (an inquiry into how the Quebec Referendum of 1995 was run by the Federal Government, which was then headed by Jean Chrétien of the Federal Liberal Party of Canada) implicated the governing Liberal Party of Canada in any wrongdoing (such as misuse of public resources or abuse of office, among other things), he would call fresh elections in order for Canadians to give his government a new mandate.
Secondly, three weeks following Justice Gomery’s release of the inquiry report that roundly vilified former top Liberal Party officials, including the former Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, the three opposition parties in parliament, the Bloc Quebecois (Bloc), the NDP and the Conservative Party of Canada (Conservatives) converged on Parliament Hill, and passed a non-confidence vote on Paul Martin’s government.
Unlike in Kenya where the Kibaki government lost a referendum vote by more than one million votes, yet rather than seek a new mandate, he unilaterally fired his entire cabinet and suspended parliament (presumably so that he could avoid a non-confidence vote in parliament), Paul Martin faced his Waterloo magnanimously. Not only did he take to the national radio and TV and publicly apologized to the Canadian citizens for the ills Justice Gomery had heaped at the feet of his party - even though he was personally exonerated of any wrongdoing - he immediately announced an election date within a day after his defeat in parliament.
There were no musical chairs, promptings or cajoling. No delegations went to 24 Sussex Drive (the equivalent of State House, Nairobi) for consultations with Paul Martin. No unsolicited advice were liberally offered through the media to Mr. Martin. No foreign diplomats urged him to take the plunge.
As required by the well understood democratic practice, Paul Martin accepted Justice Gomery’s indictment of his party and made good on his earlier commitment or promise to his citizens. Mr. Martin sought a fresh mandate without hesitation. He did so almost immediately. There was no suspense. The country was not made to wait as the Prime Minister “consulted.” No explanations, circumlocutions or red herrings were offered to the people by those in power.
Once Justice Gomery’s report was read and digested and understood to be a criticism of how the Liberal Party of Canada handled the “sponsorship affair” (as the 1995 Quebec referendum has come to be known), Paul Martin swung into action.
Senior bureaucrats faced and are still facing criminal prosecutions. Prominent names were forwarded to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for criminal investigations. A thorough purge was launched of all those implicated in the scum. In addition, Mr. Martin ordered that the Liberal Party of Canada refunds the Federal Government of all funds that Justice Gomery found to have been misappropriated or misused by its officials during the sponsorship scandal.
In 1995, the Government of Canada had taken a simple question to Quebecers for a vote. The question read as follows: “Should the Province of Quebec Separate from Canada?” Citizens of Canada residing in the Province of Quebec were then required to vote Yes or No to this simple question. The vote was restricted to those living in Quebec for the simple reason that democratically, this question had to be answered by those people. Had this question been left open to the entire Canadian population, the vote would have been skewed in favour of the rest of Canada because whereas Quebec was one province, there were twelve other provinces and territories in Canada that were predominantly English. Traditionally, English Canada has always voted to retain Quebec within Canada, whereas the public mood in the French speaking province of Quebec has varied over time, depending on how the French Quebecers felt that they were being treated or accommodated with the Canadian Federation.
The reason why this question was taken to the Quebec people for a vote was because there was an increasingly large number of Quebecers that had been demanding independence from Canada since confederation in 1867. As the number of Quebecers that believed in the independence of Quebec grew, so was their ability to organize and make their sovereignty demands on the Federal government. Quebecers had formed political parties whose main objective was Quebec independence. The Party Quebecois (PQ) and the Bloc were two such sovereignty parties.
Whereas the PQ was a Provincial Party (and at the time of the 1995 Quebec referendum, the governing party in the Province of Quebec), the Bloc was a federal opposition party, sitting at the Federal Parliament in Ottawa, but, unlike other opposition parties elsewhere, the Bloc’s role was not to acquire political power in Canada; it was only mandated to create conditions that would facilitate a break-up of Canada, with the Province of Quebec seceding from the rest of Canada as an independent state or country. Yet, the Bloc still receives funding from the Federal Government, just like any other party.
Compared to Kenya, this would be similar to any one of the eight Provinces of Kenya, for example, receiving government funding, in order to promote its sovereignty. Is such a thought unthinkable? For if Kenyans are not able to fathom such a thought, then one can argue that we are still along way from appreciating and fully practicing democracy in its purest form.
Yet, there is absolutely no rational justification for our inability to embrace democracy in all its true forms and colours. The argument I have heard repeatedly is that we are “a young democracy” and that we must be given time to learn, grow and mature. While this argument may seem valid at first blush, it contains within it dangerous germs of (neo)colonialism, racism and white supremacist presumptions.
Kenya is as old as Germany, the UK, France or Canada. Kenyans, as a people, or human species, are as old (if not older than) the Germans, the English, the French or the Irish for that matter. Our histories and cultures, as a people, are as old, glamorous and dynamic, as any other. Subsequently, to argue that we are “young” and need to grow implies that Kenyans (or Africans for that matter) either chanced on this world after the so-called mature democracies or that our systems of thought, organization and governance are inferior, younger and less developed to those assumed to be well developed, civilized and established. The argument that our country or continent or democracy is “young” is as illogical as it is wrong-headed.
In my view, the issue is not about the age, development or lack thereof. The issue has been our collective refusal to be honest, consistent, transparent, accountable and selfless in serving our people. It is usually our untamed, unrestrained and gluttonous greed for power, wealth – virtually everything that was meant to be shared - that we have confused with “youth,” “lack of development,” et cetera. There is nothing unique about the Germans, English, French or Irish, for that matter, that makes their systems of government superior to ours. We should just be as capable of practicing democracy in the same serious manner as these people, cultures and countries have.
What we need is a change of guard and orientation. This must be accompanied by a change in thought, ideology and level of commitment. In order to effect fundamental changes, Kenyans must stop vilifying politics as the game of the mad, corrupt or crooks. Public service is an honourable profession all over the world. We cannot leave it for the most corrupt and incorrigible.
During the 1995 Quebec Referendum, the governing Liberal Party of Canada, then led by Mr. Chrétien, with Paul Martin serving as the Finance Minister, saturated the Province of Quebec with TV, radio, electronic and print promotions in support of the No side. Huge billboards and posters were everywhere. Large referendum rallies were organized. And through it all, government friendly Ad-agencies received slush funds from the government, some of them channeled through senior bureaucrats and politicians. This should sound very familiar to Kenyans, in view of Kiraitu’s announcement that the just-concluded referendum was a government project; that the government was going to use billions of tax-payer money to shake all corners of the country; and president Kibaki’s unprecedented attempts at bribing voters with public resources.
The Canadian Federal government (NO) side won the Quebec Referendum vote by 51%. The Quebec Separatists (Yes) side received 49% of the votes tallied. However, immediately after the results were announced, the Premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, who had lost to the No side, resigned. Not only was this not the right thing to do for Parizeau, it was what democratic practice demanded.
Notwithstanding the post-facto analysis of, or speculations about, the presumed real reasons for Parizeau’s resignation, one of the main explanations was that since he had lost a major battle in which he had publicly and repeatedly stated, during the referendum campaigns, that the Quebec majority favoured independence from Canada, his defeat (however narrow or thin) was an indication that he had lost legitimacy, mandate or any claim of being able to deliver the one important price his people coveted; and that was an independent state.
The instantaneous popular demand was that because he had failed to deliver independence to his people, Parizeau had to make room for someone else who could keep the independence dreams, hopes and aspirations burning. Since his mandate at the beginning was to deliver independence, his failure at the referendum signaled his failure to deliver the most important thing his people wanted. Consequently, he had lost the moral authority to continue governing his people. His attempts at blaming the “ethnic” vote (as he referred to immigrants and Jews) did not help matters. Rather than receive sympathy from his people, he was excruciated, pilloried and hanged.
This is exactly the same situation as the recently concluded Kenyan referendum. Just like with the Parizeau case in Canada, Kibaki lost the referendum vote on a crucial question; this was, whether or not the people of Kenyan would say Yes or No to the draft he had prepared and attempted to impose on the people.
The overwhelming No vote was therefore correctly interpreted as a vote of non-confidence in the Kibaki government. After all, his government had strongly campaigned for the draft, arguing that Kenyans should support it because it was “a government project.” Kibaki himself claimed that the draft was the best constitution in the world and that those opposed to it were foolish (or pumbavu) people who had simply not read it or were unable to understand it.
Kibaki staked his mandate on the just-concluded referendum and a rejection of it must be viewed as a rejection of his mandate. Similarly, it does not matter that Kibaki did not promise to resign if he lost the referendum. Even Parizeau had not promised to resign going into the 1995 Quebec referendum. In any event, Kibaki’s record on promises he has made, including those he actually appended his signature(s) to, would not encourage any Kenyan to expect him to honour them. Kibaki’s record as clear as a bright tropical noon sun.
Kibaki has been unable to honour an MOU he physically signed with the LDP. He dishonoured his public undertaking to ensure that the Bomas Draft Constitution was ratified within one hundred days of him taking power. And now, he just went over the two-week deadline he had decried as the time within which he would form a new government, following his cowardly firing of the entire cabinet.
There are some similarities between the way the losing Quebec premier reacted in 1995 with how key Banana team members such as Kiraitu, Nyachae, Kombo, Karume and Kibaki have reacted. Rather than publicly take responsibility for the loss and see it as a loss of public confidence in their abilities to deliver, they have chosen to blame those who have won.
This strategy, as we have learnt in the Quebec referendum situation, does not work very well in a democracy.
However, the after-effects of the 1995 Quebec referendum result erupted sporadically throughout Chrétien’s term. Hence, by the time Chrétien resigned about two years ago, there were strong popular demands for a full accounting of how his government had ran the referendum campaign. There were murmurs of financial irregularities, politically-connected contracts, corruption and even fraud.
As such, when Paul Martin became the Prime Minister less than two years ago, his first priority was to cleanse himself from any stench from the referendum rot. He quickly established an independent judicial inquiry, appointed a well-regarded Jurist, Justice Gomery, to head it, and set a deadline when the inquiry had to deliver its report. However, in order to show seriousness to this undertaking, and to effectively deflect attention from those who were accusing him of an attempt at a “whitewash”, Mr. Martin publicly promised to call a snap election if Justice Gomery found that the Liberal Part, which he had assumed leadership of, was involved in any wrongdoing. He also promised to resign if Judge Gomery implicated him in any of the alleged referendum ills.
When Judge Gomery’s report was finally delivered within schedule, Mr. Martin was not directly implicated. However, Judge Gomery made findings of wrongdoing against Mr. Martin’s predecessor, political party, former party functionaries and senior bureaucrats. On the same day that the report was released to the public, Mr. Martin addressed a press-conference at which he publicly apologized for the role of his party or party members in the debacle. He also expressed regret at the identified problems, infractions, loss of public funds, et cetera. He immediately recommended that the RCMP criminally investigate all allegations of wrongdoing, regardless of who was involved. Shortly afterwards, he stated that he was prepared to call elections, as soon as the opposition parties brought his government down through a non-confidence vote. Mr. Martin refused to delay the inevitable through backroom negotiations, musical chairs or co-option of opposition parties or parliamentarians. He did not take advantage of his constitutional powers to prorogue or suspend parliament.
And exactly two weeks following the delivery of the Gomery Report, the opposition parties passed a non-confidence vote on the government. On the very following day, Mr. Martin consulted with the Governor General of Canada, and announced an election day of 23 January 2006.
Unlike in Kenya where president Kibaki has taken a selfish approach by irregularly extending his stay in power in the face of an overwhelming vote against the “government project,” here in Canada, Mr. Martin has done what is required in any functioning democracy. Utilizing constitutional loopholes or weaknesses is not a true mark of statesmanship.
If Kibaki is unable to take the right decision, the people of Kenya should either force him to do so, or proceed to stake their claims on the democratic space in spite of him.
______________________________________________________________________
*The writer is a Barrister & Solicitor, in Toronto, Canada