Mudavadi Latest News: Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi has opposed the bid to create the post of a powerful prime minister in the possible changes to the Constitution.
Mr Mudavadi, while making his submissions to the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task-force at KICC yesterday, also opposed creation of regional governments.He claimed some politicians were pushing for the third tier of government ostensibly to reward loyal governors serving their final term in office. Mudavadi, who declared support for the BBI process, noted that a powerful PM’s post would lead to two centres of power, what was likely to be a major cause of infighting in government.
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“We are strictly opposed to any attempt to create multiple, conflicting or ambiguous centres of State authority. The Head of State must also be the Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the defence forces. This authority must not be shared or open to multiple interpretations,” Mr Mudavadi told the BBI steering committee in its third day of validation hearings at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre.
The prime minister, Mr Mudavadi proposed, should be appointed by the President from the President’s party subject to approval by Parliament.
“If Kenya is to create the office of the prime minister, it should be in a structure that will not have any filibustering lest you create a bureaucracy that will not function,” he said.
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Mudavadi said his proposal for the PM to be picked from the president’s party was informed by his experience in the Grand Coalition Government formed by now retired President Mwai Kibaki and Raila after the chaotic 2007 elections. He said it became difficult to run the government, as Kibaki and Raila represented opposing camps that were not ready to take instructions from the rival side. “It reached a point where when the PM called for a Cabinet sub-committee meeting, if you were from Kibaki’s PNU faction, you feigned commitment. We developed a situation where there was always lack of quorum,” said Mudavadi.
