How NARC resuscitated imperial presidency that Kenyans loathed

By the time Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Kiraitu Murungi walked out of Bomas of Kenya on March 15, 2004, leading government delegates in a theatrical protest, he knew what he was doing.

He was not defending democracy. He was not protecting the consensus. He was executing a calculated strategy to strangle the one document that threatened to permanently clip the wings of the imperial Kenyan presidency.

It was a political heist in broad daylight, witnessed by millions, yet somehow forgotten in the comfortable amnesia that passes for our national memory. The Sulumeti Consensus Report was never about consensus. It was about salvage.

When Bishop Sulumeti’s committee presented its recommendations, it was offering President Kibaki’s NARC faction a dignified retreat from the radical reforms Kenyans had demanded. The people had spoken clearly during the public hearings: they wanted a weak, ceremonial president and a powerful, accountable prime minister. They had lived through the Kenyatta and Moi years. They knew exactly what unfettered Executive power looked like, and they wanted it dismantled.

But Kiraitu and his allies wanted none of this. Listen to his words from that fateful plenary: “We expected that this position would be brought by Bishop Sulumeti to this meeting for adoption... We are very disappointed.” Disappointed that their carefully negotiated compromise — a president who remained both Head of State and Head of Government — was being rejected by the very delegates sent to represent the people’s will.

The voting told the truth that day. When the plenary rejected the Sulumeti amendments 297 to 172, it was not a procedural wrangle. It was the people’s representatives, properly constituted, refusing to surrender the reforms Kenyans had bled for. The Zero Draft’s Article 173, which made the President merely Head of State and stripped him of government functions, stood. For a few glorious hours, Kenya had a constitutional framework that might have saved us from the Executive excesses we now accept as normal.

Then came the walkout. The government's withdrawal was not a principled protest. It was blackmail. Kiraitu made the demands explicit: adopt our report, nullify the votes, institute a secret ballot, or we paralyse this process. When these conditions were rejected, approximately 138 delegates marched out, hoping to break the quorum and kill the process. They failed. The conference continued, quorate and determined — but they won the longer war.

Because what happened next was the Naivasha Accord. The Naivasha Accord performed surgery on the people’s constitution without anaesthetic. The Bomas Draft, born of years of civic education, public hearings, and genuine participation, was quietly eviscerated in backroom deals. The powerful Prime Minister of Kenya demanded? Diluted. The robust devolution with eight regional units that communities celebrated? First expanded to fourteen regions, then gutted entirely, replaced by 47 counties that, while valuable, lack the structural power to check a determined Executive. And what did NARC achieve with this betrayal? Look at the presidency today. Look at the unchecked power, the immunity from accountability, the casual disregard for constitutional limits that characterise Executive conduct. Look at how presidents appoint, dismiss, and govern as if the 2010 Constitution were merely a suggestion.

The MPs who walked out that day betrayed the sovereign will of the people. They traded your constitutional future for their political present. They chose the comfort of an imperial presidency they inhabited over the rigour of a parliamentary system that would have distributed power to you, the citizen. But here is the truth they do not want you to remember: Article 1(2) of the 2010 Constitution, the one they eventually accepted, declares that “All sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya and shall be exercised only in accordance with this Constitution.” Not in accordance with political deals. Not in accordance with NARC’s comfort. In accordance with the Constitution.

That sovereignty is not theoretical. It is a loaded weapon waiting to be fired. Every provision for public participation, every demand for accountability, every mechanism for citizen oversight is a bullet chambered and ready. The walkout of 2004 should haunt you.

The restoration of checks on the presidency will not come from politicians. It will not come from beneficiaries of the imperial system. It will come from you. From citizens who show up to public participation forums not as spectators but as auditors of power. From voters who recall every MP who has defended Executive excess.

The people spoke. Politicians cheated. The question for this generation is whether you will let that cheat stand. Assert Article 1(2). Not in rhetoric, but in relentless, organised, constitutional action. Demand the checks the Bomas Draft envisioned. Insist on a presidency that serves, not rules.