Don’t fear boundary review, census

KNBS Director-General Zachary Mwangi (right) speaks at the launch of 2019 mock census at Imara Daima chief’s camp in Nairobi on August 24, 2018. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • As we root for strong geopolitical economic blocs with strong regional assemblies, we should consider reducing electoral units.

  • Kenyans are only slightly over 40 million and our GDP is around $71 billion (Sh7.1 trillion) but we have 47 counties.

As we approach next year’s national population census, and the subsequent review of electoral boundaries, a new cogent debate is unfolding: Should we review wards, constituencies and counties?

If so, why? Or why not? Are our arguments local or national? Should economics inform our standpoints? Why fear mergers of electoral units for the 2022 General Election as per our constitutional threshold?

As we root for strong geopolitical economic blocs with strong regional assemblies, we should consider reducing electoral units. An increase in county revenue allocation to 45 per cent and raising CDF to five per cent will greatly change the economic fortunes of the citizens. Downsizing representation will also help to reduce the skyrocketing public wage bill.

We should also amend the law to provide for a hybrid cabinet at regional and national levels to tap specialised skills while ensuring legislatures are linked well with executives.

We are over-represented. With a population of 56 million and gross domestic product of $400 billion (Sh40 trillion), South Africa has nine regions. Nigeria, with 190 million people and a GDP of $360 billion (Sh36 trillion), has 36 states.

TOO BIG

Kenyans are only slightly over 40 million and our GDP is around $71 billion (Sh7.1 trillion) but we have 47 counties. Yet Kenya is geographically half the size of Nigeria and 40 per cent of South Africa.

Proportional representation is a basic human right. But some constituencies, such as Mathira in Nyeri County, are too big. With a population of 196,000 and over 100,000 voters, it is bigger than some counties! On the other extreme are sparsely populated and far-flung administrative and elective units.

While a careful balance is contemplated in the Constitution, some injustice happened in the last boundary review. To cure this, we must be bold and think not out of the box but without any box at all! Review across the board. Right-size everyone. We should not burden the taxpayer. Not anymore.

The United States has a bicameral legislature. At the primary level is the House of Representatives with no more than 435 seats comprising elected congress-persons from the 50 states. Then there is a powerful Senate with two senators from every state.

SMALLER ECONOMY

The US population is about 400 million. Roughly, Kenya would make only one of the states, but with a much smaller economy. I hasten to underscore the economic comparison since, in the real sense, there is an affordability question to representation. Were the US federal states, every one of them under an elected governor, to be ranked as independent national economies, California (population 39 million) would be the fifth-richest country. That means the US can easily underwrite the costs of its heavy political administration.

The biggest hindrance to a desirable review is that Kenyans are yet to cohere. Our voting trend is 90 per cent tribal. Unlike Tanzania, we are many ‘nations’.

Our fear of domination is largely ethnic. Perhaps political parties can be required to somehow ‘innovate’ nationalism.

In the early 1960s, Tom Mboya won Nairobi’s Kamukunji seat, Achieng Oneko, Nakuru Town with 80 per cent ethnic Kikuyu population and John Keen vied in Trans Nzoia.

The good news is, we are witnessing a recurrence, albeit in a different format. Ethnic minorities are MPs in Kisumu, Uasin Gishu and Meru counties, an MCA in Kiambu and, in 1992, a councillor in Murang’a.

TRANSIENT POLITICS

Analysts should factor economic viabilities over transient politics. In fact, this what Boresha Katiba parliamentary caucus (2015/16) lobbied.

Let’s also correct the warped 2009 census, whose dispute has been in the High Court for eight years.

We also need to talk money matters to the grassroots without diluting the weight of any vote or marginalising anyone. Equality of votes is indispensable. And so is equitable distribution of resources. We cannot correct historical mistakes by making historic mistakes. No minority contempt, no majority phobia.

The fear to merge electoral units for better political and, more importantly, economic dynamics is because we are hostages of ethnic — even village — prejudices and idiocy. This is a product of elite myopic self-preservation.

Before we reach this point, we need to support the Building Bridges to Unity. If the nine points enunciated in the “handshake” are achieved, citizens will care little about the geographical proximity or mother tongue of their elected representative.

 Mr Kabando is a former Mukurwe-ini MP. [email protected]