Post by kamalet on Dec 21, 2014 11:15:55 GMT 3
Last Thursday was a dark political day in Kenya's history and it is surprising no one has raised the matter here for debate.
Irrespective of which side MPs belong, the behaviour of our leaders was to say the least deplorable. It is my sincere hope that some form of action will be taken on those MPs that threw water, books and kicked other when the house resumes next year.
But could it all have been avoided? I think yes and the lack of wisdom on the CORD side showed how things can go wrong. I have used this phrase here before - "an army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep". Cord has some otherwise bright fellows in its ranks but they cannot see beyond their noses as they suck up their leaders. The ODM wing is perhaps the worst affected.
If the intention was to stop the Security Laws from passing, there were more civil and clever ways of doing it. The initial strategy resolving the dispute on the Order Paper worked well even forcing the speaker to remove the procedural motion extending the sitting time for the house.This was a major win by the opposition and they should have ridden on it. The second victory for the opposition was the re-organisation of the order paper bringing forward the approval of Nkaissery's appointment. First they had Nyenze repeat himself in responding to the motion on the nomination. Then the two key questions to get the approval seemed to go Cord's way. Whilst they had no problem with the appointment of Nkaissery, by forcing a division twice, they actually boought about 50 minutes to just pass that one motion on the order paper. That should have given the opposition an idea of the power they had. They had enough numbers in the house to force a division in every question.
So when the matter of the Security laws was to come before the committee of the whole house, rather than just sit pretty and force a division to every ammendment, they decided that taking the 'Men in Black' route would serve them best. With the house required to wind up business by 6.30 p.m. why could these guys not do it cleanly and still defeat the governm the option and had the law passed!
I read in the media today that Muturi should have handled the matter a lot better, but then everyone seems to recognise who started the trouble or even consider the opportunity given to the house by the two adjournments offered by the speaker.
In today's media there have been comparisons between Marende and Muturi or even Kaparo. One would easily think that Marende was solomonic but in actual fact he survived and lived off his party's majority in Parliament. Marende made terrible and partisan rulings that can only compete with those of Muturi. The only difference between in Muturi's parliament and in Marende's parliament is the minority party in the house. PNU with its minority in parliament but being in government lived through the mercy of ODM to get its legislative agenda through. ODM despite being in the GCG never seemed to think they were in government and played the opposition in parliament. So it must be the maturity (or lack of violent traits) in the PNU side that allowed Marende to get away with some of his rulings. Poor Muturi does not have this luxury and his house with the type of opposition MPs we saw last Thursday. Why we cannot respect institutions we build is something I constantly struggle to understand!
Irrespective of which side MPs belong, the behaviour of our leaders was to say the least deplorable. It is my sincere hope that some form of action will be taken on those MPs that threw water, books and kicked other when the house resumes next year.
But could it all have been avoided? I think yes and the lack of wisdom on the CORD side showed how things can go wrong. I have used this phrase here before - "an army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep". Cord has some otherwise bright fellows in its ranks but they cannot see beyond their noses as they suck up their leaders. The ODM wing is perhaps the worst affected.
If the intention was to stop the Security Laws from passing, there were more civil and clever ways of doing it. The initial strategy resolving the dispute on the Order Paper worked well even forcing the speaker to remove the procedural motion extending the sitting time for the house.This was a major win by the opposition and they should have ridden on it. The second victory for the opposition was the re-organisation of the order paper bringing forward the approval of Nkaissery's appointment. First they had Nyenze repeat himself in responding to the motion on the nomination. Then the two key questions to get the approval seemed to go Cord's way. Whilst they had no problem with the appointment of Nkaissery, by forcing a division twice, they actually boought about 50 minutes to just pass that one motion on the order paper. That should have given the opposition an idea of the power they had. They had enough numbers in the house to force a division in every question.
So when the matter of the Security laws was to come before the committee of the whole house, rather than just sit pretty and force a division to every ammendment, they decided that taking the 'Men in Black' route would serve them best. With the house required to wind up business by 6.30 p.m. why could these guys not do it cleanly and still defeat the governm the option and had the law passed!
I read in the media today that Muturi should have handled the matter a lot better, but then everyone seems to recognise who started the trouble or even consider the opportunity given to the house by the two adjournments offered by the speaker.
In today's media there have been comparisons between Marende and Muturi or even Kaparo. One would easily think that Marende was solomonic but in actual fact he survived and lived off his party's majority in Parliament. Marende made terrible and partisan rulings that can only compete with those of Muturi. The only difference between in Muturi's parliament and in Marende's parliament is the minority party in the house. PNU with its minority in parliament but being in government lived through the mercy of ODM to get its legislative agenda through. ODM despite being in the GCG never seemed to think they were in government and played the opposition in parliament. So it must be the maturity (or lack of violent traits) in the PNU side that allowed Marende to get away with some of his rulings. Poor Muturi does not have this luxury and his house with the type of opposition MPs we saw last Thursday. Why we cannot respect institutions we build is something I constantly struggle to understand!