Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has propounded that there is a need to devolve the presidency to all 47 counties to end ethnic mobilisation.
In Omtatah’s view, the Presidency ought to have been devolved when Devolution was introduced in the 2010 Constitution when the balance of power was reconfigured and responsibilities were devolved from the national government to county governments.
“I strongly believe that we have a design flaw in our Constitution, wherein we devolved all organs of governance except the presidency,” he tweeted on Monday.
“There is the urgent need to fully devolve the presidency to the 47 counties, the way the American founding fathers devolved their presidency to all the states that make up the United States of America.”
According to Senator Omtatah, the devolution will allow the 47 counties to vote by the ‘popular vote system’ where the national president will be elected by popular votes garnered at the county level.
He explained that each county would be assigned electoral points equivalent to the number of its constituencies, a system he opines will tame the pattern of having the national presidency deemed as a preserve of specific tribal backgrounds.
“It is only by ensuring that a President is elected by a popular vote weighted at the county level and not nationally that the stranglehold on national politics by the big five tribes will be broken,” he said.
“Each county would be assigned the number of electoral points equivalent to the number of constituencies it has plus one extra point underscoring that all counties are equal. We have 290 constituencies + 47 counties totalling 337 electoral points.”
To win the national presidential position, Omtatah added, one would need to score 169 electoral points (being 50% + 1 of the points).
“That way, the big five tribes (Luhyia, Kamba, & Luo (i.e. NASA) on the one hand, & the Kalenjin & Kikuyu (Jubilee) on the other), which dominate national politics in Kenya simply due to their sizeable populations will be cut down to size given that significant members of these five tribes are minorities in other counties,” he wrote.
He added: “When tallied at the county level, even Lamu County with only two constituencies would have three vital electoral points which, though not enough to produce a president, can prevent one from being a president.”
“Hence, Lamu will not be insignificant in the scheme of things, & those seeking the presidency will not flaunt the national sizes of their tribes at Lamu; they will tell Lamu their agenda for the county.”
Senator Omtatah, therefore, stated that he will be seeking to amend Article 138 of the constitution “to devolve the presidency by removing the provision inadvertently created in law for the ethnic mobilisation of the national electorate at presidential elections.”
