A confidential document that reportedly details the Jubilee Party’s re-election strategy has revealed that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s team is considering amending the Constitution to create the position of two deputy presidents and a prime minister.
The document titled “The Political Situation” reported by the Sunday Nation, outlines that Jubilee strategists have observed that there is a need to reconstruct the Presidency to enhance the party’s fortunes at the 2017 ballot.
In addition to creating more positions, there is also the prospect of recruiting cabinet secretaries from among parliamentarians.
“For example, Jubilee can promise a more inclusive presidency. This can be achieved by restructuring the presidency to include two or three deputies and a prime minister.
“This will attract more people into the coalition that Jubilee will enter into. The more the positions, the more the Government is likely to be representative and can genuinely promise inclusivity, which people are clamouring for,” the strategy paper says in part.
The proposal is set to set to spark debate in the political scene considering the Opposition team has also declared a plan to create more top positions if they win in the August polls.
The document also reveals that Jubilee is considering whether to make pre-election or post-election agreements with friendly parties such Maendeleo Chap Chap and Narc Kenya.
Also in the document, strategists have noted that the dissolution of regional parties outside Mt Kenya and Rift Valley regions had created a vacuum and a rich vote mining field for the opposition, in addition to the “danger” of promoting the rise of “new anti-Jubilee regional chiefs”.
The Jubilee strategists have also warned that a lot of effort has to be put in to ensure a first-round win, noting that a run-off was undesirable.
Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale declined to comment on the document, saying "the Jubilee election strategy document is a confidential in-house document for the top Jubilee leadership".
"It is a highly classified document which cannot be divulged to the media. We are not like NASA which calls a press conference whenever it comes up with a strategy,” Duale said.
