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Kenya: Don`t go back to the past
2008-03-18 09:20:52
By Editor
The world watches with great expectations as Kenyans wait for the new national unity government, which will be formed in line with the National Accord that was reached after enduring and tenacious efforts made by former UN chief Koffi Annan and his team.
We are quite encouraged by developments on the ground, which relate to implementation of the accord. Special mention must be made of Parliamentarians of both PNU and ODM parties and others, who have willingly cooperated to spearhead the putting up of the necessary legal framework that will make the envisaged power-sharing deal possible.
President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga have each also gone a long way to manifest the doing away of past differences, as they look forward to working together to unite the country and manage its government.
Both parties are working on modalities of having their members take up senior positions in government, civil service, parastatals and diplomatic missions.
Indeed, all Kenyans have the right to being appointed to key positions on merit, regardless of their tribal or political affiliations.
However, we wish to advise those who are going to be nominated either by President Mwai Kibaki or ODM leader Raila Odinga to incline themselves on national rather than party interests, if the exercise is to have the intended success.
They have to borrow a leaf from the on-going CCM/CUF `muafaka` talks in Tanzania, whereby national interests have compelled both parties to a roundtable discussion; in spite of the fact that each party believes that it has the right to the control of state power.
In the same way, apart from other factors that are responsible for the post-election violence in Kenya, the issue of control of state power is being eyed closely by political leaders and party stalwarts from both sides.
The people of Kenya are of different political affiliations, but all they yearn for is a return to peace, stability and national harmony.
If the new appointees are going to further any kind of actions that will reflect paranoia and ethnic divisions, if they condone or promote any of that, then Kenya will move nowhere and will in fact backslide.
Kenya should get out of the myopia of captive ethnic interests by realizing that all citizens, irrespective of their ethnic origins, need peace and development. Sadly, the people who are pushing the tribal agenda in Kenya are the so-called educated elite.
We advise the in-coming team to do away with such paranoia.
Even more critically, the whole Kenyan leadership should have their ears on the ground so that they can translate the aspirations and expectations of their people if they are truly interested in building a new Kenya.
Due to the fact each party is going to be proportionally represented in the government of national unity, the people who are going to be appointed are expected to uphold the vision of primacy of national interests.
The world expects that Kenyan leaders will take out their country from the dark pond which the political elite had taken them into. The same is the expectation of the ordinary Kenyans from their leaders.
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