From a dictatorship of one, to a dictatorship of 349. I say this is progress. Admittedly, change has been slow. But the dispersal of power is almost always a good thing.
H/T Boniface Mwangi.
The Kenyan National Assembly since 2002
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Tag Archives: national assembly
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s State of the National Address to Parliament
On Thursday President Uhuru Kenyatta presented his annual report to the joint session of Parliament. You can find the text of the speech here and the youtube clip here.
Key achievements of his administration over the last three years include (i) rural electrification (nearly all primary schools have been connected to the grid — THIS IS PRETTY BIG DEAL); (ii) the construction of a new railway line (the project is a corruption boondoggle, but the speed with which it is being carried out is stunning); and (iii) power generation.
Below is a word cloud showing some of the issues the president focused on. Corruption, health (hospital), security, and general service provision were the main policy areas that the president chose to focus on.
I was surprised by the failure of “agriculture”, “land”, “education”, and “infrastructure” to make the top twenty. “Road” had a respectable show. There was also a lot of politics — mainly directed at the opposition and civil society.
Perhaps in reaction to David Ndii’s provocative article on the failure of the Kenya Project, the president’s speech was particularly nationalist. The words “Covenant” and “Nationalist” appeared 27 and 22 times, respectively, well ahead of key policy-related terms.
I am personally worried that the word “development” outperformed “economic/economy.” I hope this is not a signal that the government views the running of the economy as a massive “development project.” We all know how those usually turn out.
What’s African about unalloyed misogyny?
The just passed marriage bill is unambiguously the most offensive idea to come out of the 11th Parliament yet. According to the BBC:
MP Samuel Chepkong’a, who proposed the amendment, said that when a woman got married under customary law, she understood that the marriage was open to polygamy, so no consultation was necessary, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reports.
Mohammed Junet, an MP representing a constituency from the western Nyanza province, agreed.
“When you marry an African woman, she must know the second one is on the way and a third wife… this is Africa,”
This is Grade A horse manure.
President Kenyatta should veto this bill. And the group of Kenyan MPs who think that disempowering women is a smart idea are advised to watch the video below of President Kibaki at a press conference ostensibly to confirm to Kenyans that he has ONLY ONE WIFE, following rumors to the contrary [More here].
Also, Mr. Kenyatta should require that before he assents to the bill it must expressly forbid dabbling in both civil and “customary” marriages because the resultant legal arbitrage only benefits men. SOMEONE TELL ME, WHY DO WE NEED A DUAL SYSTEM ANYWAY??? A woman entering a civil marriage should have the guarantee that it will always remain so, with stiff penalties for men who violate the contract. The provisions for Muslims have always been clear and should remain so.
[youtube.com/watch?v=wSlTW8mjirs&eurl=http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/541450/-/441cmq/-/index.html]And just for good measure, they should also hear what Chimanda has to say about gender relations:
[youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc]More on the unbelievably sophomoric debate on this matter in the National Assembly here.
kenopalo.com 