The Kenya African National Union (KANU) advised Deputy President William Ruto to support constitutional changes that may result from the agreement between President Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA leader Raila Odinga as they may work in favor of his Presidential ambitions.
Secretary-General Nick Salat explained that if the tension, anxiety and chaos that characterized elections in Kenya could be done away with then the amendments could be a boost for Ruto's Presidential bid.
“Devolution has had a positive impact on service delivery perceptions of Kenyans. But it has come with a huge wage bill sinking the country into trillions in debts.
"The fear of electoral violence over a presidential vote converted Kenya into a virtual military state in 2017. Resources devoted to security arrangements made the elections expensive. If amendments can save us all this anxiety, it is a good thing even for DP’s succession ambitions,” he noted.
Salat further advised Ruto to back staggering of elections for various positions over a period of time instead of having them all in one day.
[caption caption="KANU Secretary-General Nick Salat"]
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He elucidated that a staggered system would be better “than crowding six elections on one day to make campaigns less tedious”.
After Raila proposed a new 3-tier system of government in his keynote address on the second day of the Devolution Conference, Ruto took to the same stage a day later voicing opposition to any Constitutional amendments.
Ruto maintained that a referendum would be expensive and unnecessary, asking leaders to focus on development.
The opposition boss noted that although devolution had its fair share of success stories, there was need to restructure the system to ensure the units were economically viable.
"We need to bite the bullet and revisit the structure of devolution. The Bomas draft had 14 regions and the intention was to have units that were economically viable. It is time to look at how to recover this system.
"I propose a 3-tier system that retains the counties, creates regional or provincial governments and retains the national government with a clear formula of revenue sharing," he declared.
[caption caption="NASA leader Raila Odinga"]
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