Kenyan Panel Recommends Reintroducing Post of Prime Minister

(Bloomberg) -- Kenya should reintroduce the position of prime minister and name the runner up in presidential elections the leader of the opposition, according to a panel that was appointed to ease ethnic tensions and suggest how the country can be better run.

The proposed establishment of the posts are part of a raft of reforms drafted by the so-called Building Bridges Initiative, which was established by President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga in the wake of a contested election in 2017 that threatened to stoke widespread conflict.

The panel also suggested that recurrent expenditure be capped at 30% of the national budget, a tall order given that the public wage bill accounts for more than a third of state revenue. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has urged Kenyatta’s administration to exercise caution in managing the government’s finances after it raised the borrowing ceiling and the ratio of debt to gross domestic product approached the 60% level.

The panel’s other suggestions include barring public officials from doing business with the government to avoid conflict of interest, and introducing a flat tax to simplify revenue collection.

Winner-Takes-All

Kenya should end its a winner-takes-all political system, which was to blame for the political animosity surrounding past elections, according to a copy of the panel’s report obtained from its secretary, Martin Kimani on Wednesday. If adopted, the reforms could have a major bearing on the outcome of elections scheduled for 2022.

We need a system “that makes all Kenyans feel like they are winners,” Kenyatta said at a meeting in Nairobi after the publication of the report. “We can differ on policies but not on who won.”

The prime ministerial role was held by Odinga from 2008 to 2013 as part of a deal that created a unity government, and helped end violence that followed a contested 2007 vote and claimed more than 1,100 lives. The position was scrapped in a government structure ushered by a new constitution in 2010.

Kenya, which has East Africa’s largest economy and is a regional hub for global brands including Alphabet Inc. and Coca-Cola, has struggled to put an end to election-related ethnic violence. The candidate who wins the support of three of the five biggest ethnic groups -- Kenyatta’s Kikuyu, Deputy President William Ruto’s Kalenjin, Odinga’s Luo, the Luhya and the Kamba -- is almost guaranteed to win the presidency.

Odinga went to the Supreme Court to dispute results of the 2017 election that showed that Kenyatta had won and secured a ruling that the vote be held again. He then boycotted the rerun after some of his demands for electoral forms were shunned, handing Kenyatta a win.

Odinga revealed Wednesday that his allies asked him to declare some sort of autonomy for his strongholds and even begin collecting taxes there, while Kenyatta’s supporters wanted him to be arrested for treason after he organized a mock swearing in for himself.

People’s President

“That’s where we are coming from. We ended up with the president and the people’s president,” Odinga said. “It is under those circumstances that counsels of goodwill prevailed, and we ended up -- me and the president -- having a conversation. It took 19 hours.”

While politicians welcomed the initiative as an attempt at nation-building, it also caused ructions within the ruling Jubilee Party with supporters of Deputy President Ruto fearing it will sideline him and lay the groundwork for Odinga to succeed Kenyatta as president.

The Senate majority leader and Ruto’s ally, Kipchumba Murkomen, said diverse political opinions should be sought during the debate on the panel’s report.

The “proposals will form a basis for a national conversation,” Ruto said at the same event. Kenya needs “a robust opposition that will hold the government to account. There will be no losers and winners, everyone will have a role in taking our country forward.”

--With assistance from David Malingha.

To contact the reporters on this story: Eric Ombok in Nairobi at eombok@bloomberg.net;David Herbling in Nairobi at dherbling@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Mike Cohen

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.