Stung by the rejection of a new Constitution he backed, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has moved to restore flagging confidence in his leadership with a pair of tough political moves, analysts said on Friday.
Kibaki sacked his entire Cabinet and then suspended next week’s planned reopening of Parliament after the embarrassing defeat in Monday’s referendum on the draft charter, widely seen as a vote of no confidence in his government.
But faced with the growing discontent, he has refused to bow to pressure to dissolve the legislature and call snap elections that could lead to his recall, instead making the bold bids to re-assert authority, analysts said.
”Kibaki is flexing his muscles to redeem his nearly shattered leadership and instil discipline in his government,” said Mwenda Njoka, a political columnist with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.
”The president will use his firepower to reinvent his reputation,” he said.
Njoka and others said they believe Kibaki’s concern about the introduction of a no-confidence motion in Parliament, which had been set to resume on Tuesday, was behind the president’s decision to suspend the Assembly.
Debate over the new Constitution — the first major change to Kenya’s founding charter since independence from Britain in 1963 — had deeply split Kibaki’s ruling coalition.
Kibaki had promised a new charter when he swept to power three years ago, but critics said the draft presented to voters defied popular demands for a less powerful president.
Two dissident ministers, along with the political opposition, led the campaign for a ”no” vote in the referendum, which was eventually rejected by nearly 60% of voters, despite Kibaki’s appeals.
Some said Kibaki was using strong-arm tactics, and calls to forget about constitutional change and focus on development, to distract Kenyans from his three-year-old administration’s lacklustre performance on reform.
”We would like to emphasise that the rejection of the draft was not a vote for the existing Constitution,” the state-run Kenya Commission for Human Rights said.
”Kenyans are clear that we want a new Constitution and the fruition of this demand must be met as soon as possible and in a manner that tries to bind us together rather than divide us,” it added.
”The right thing is for Kibaki to dissolve Parliament and call for elections now,” Nairobi-based political scientist Opiyo Oketch said. ”Wishing away a Constitution and talking of development is a fallacy.
”Kibaki should know that the voice of the people is the will of God,” he said. ”He should stop all these political games and realise that peace and stability in Kenya should not be taken for granted.”
University of Nairobi political-science lecturer Luke Otieno also said Kibaki’s unprecedented firing of the entire 29-member Cabinet and suspension of Parliament could be cause for concern.
”We are in uncharted territory; no Kenyan president has ever done this,” he said. ”It might serve him for better or worse.”
Most analysts said Kibaki is facing a strong leadership challenge from the Orange Democratic Movement, which fought off the new Constitution and now looks well positioned for elections set for 2007. — Sapa-AFP