Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Friday insisted a draft Constitution pushed through Parliament by his ruling coalition will improve Kenya, though protesters who clashed with police as lawmakers debated the charter complain it gives him too much power.
Lawmakers voted 102 to 61 just before midnight on Thursday to approve the draft Constitution after three days of violent demonstrations by protesters who also said the ruling party was ignoring a grass-roots review process that demanded sweeping government reforms.
”We have chosen to improve the nation and I am sure we will improve the nation” after years of misrule and abuses by previous administrations, said Kibaki, whose allies pushed through changes in the draft Constitution.
The attorney general will now make a final draft of the Constitution, which will be put to a national referendum tentatively scheduled before year-end.
Many Kenyans do not share Kibaki’s confidence that the charter will enable the East African nation to make a clear break from the past.
”What happened in Parliament yesterday has taken Kenya backward because we failed to take advantage of a historic opportunity to clip the powers of the president — powers that we all know have been used to commit serious abuses in the past,” said Assenath Karimi, a 45-year-old knitwear trader.
”Politicians hijacked the reform process and overhauled the draft Constitution that originally reflected the real wishes, desires and hopes of Kenyans,” Abubakar Iddi, a 40-year-old roadside vendor of Islamic literature, said on Friday.
Speaking after talks with visiting former United States president Bill Clinton, Kibaki dismissed the accusations.
”The decision which was going to be made is what was made. The fact that there was a dispute leading to that is not really … a worry,” Kibaki said.
Clinton sought to encourage Kenyans, saying they should continue pressing for what they believe in.
”I would say this to the people of Kenya: you shouldn’t get discouraged if the political decision goes against you … The problem with democracy is if you don’t like what happens, you just have to keep working on it,” Clinton said during a joint press conference with Kibaki.
”You just can’t over-read the results of any decision. Not in a real democracy, not as long as you got an election coming up, you just have to keep at it.”
During protests on Thursday, police arrested at least 15 activists walking toward the National Assembly. Officers on horseback blocked pedestrians from using the road running in front of the building as lawmakers debated the draft Constitution.
Elsewhere in the capital, hundreds of polytechnic students fired tear-gas canisters and threw stones at pedestrians near key government buildings.
Police fired in the air to deter looters in at least one instance in the central business district. The protests eased by late afternoon after businesses, schools and clinics closed down early in downtown Nairobi. — Sapa-AP