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The debate over the referendum is increasingly taking a political dimension and there is danger that the legitimate issues may be lost. That would be disastrous for the country. If the country is convinced that the Constitution should be changed, then it should be to serve the interest of the citizens, not the political elite.
For starters, the Constitution has not run full cycle; it has not matured to the extent that we can competently determine its weaknesses. It is hardly a decade old and many provisions that were to be implemented in the long terms have not been implemented. For example, the provision on one-third gender rule has not been realised.
Its basis is freedoms and expanding opportunities. For example, the clause on the Bill of Rights, is quite progressive and promotes civil liberties allowing citizens to exercise their freedoms.
The main contention about the Constitution is governance structure. As currently constituted, the main challenge is the type of government. We have a governance system that promotes exclusion. The winner takes everything and the loser is completely vanquished. For that reason, the elections are acrimonious and extremely divisive. Leading politicians are all agreed that this system is unsustainable.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and Opposition leader Raila Odinga have been on the front line in recent times for constitutional change precisely to correct this anomaly. There is merit in that. The country requires a system that allows inclusivity and empowerment of all citizens. That is the surest way of securing stability and peace.
But that is not the only reason the Constitution should be changed. There are other equally critical issues that must be addressed and which is the reason the citizens have to be involved in the conversation. Among these is expanding devolution. Generally, devolution is the centrepiece of the Constitution because it disperses power to the people. But there are issues that have emerged around it. The first is financing. Presently, the law provides that counties ought to be given an annual allocation of not less than 15 of the revenues. Although that is the base, it can easily be taken as the norm and no government is obliged to allocate more; doing so is discretional. Yet matters of finance should not be discretional. Given the impact of devolution on grass roots development, it must be properly funded.
Related to this is rationalising the county structures. Evidence has shown that it is not sustainable to have 47 counties. Ideally, the numbers should be reduced and properly resourced so that they can thrive.
The point we are making is that the Constitution change should be people-driven; it should not just serve the interest of the politicians.
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