This is the Wantam Weekly Edition, The politics behind the politics.
An opinion recently published by Ibrahim Abdi Saney of The Standard Newspaper asks whether Kenya should reconsider the current five-year presidential term, renewable once, and whether a single, non-renewable 10-year term would give governments sufficient time to plan, finance and complete major national projects without being consumed by the politics of seeking re-election.
TERMS LIMIT OR CONTINUITY?
It is a legitimate question. Kenya does need continuity. Kenya does need long-term planning. Kenya does need governments capable of thinking beyond the next election.
But if the problem is lack of continuity, why should the answer be giving one President ten uninterrupted years in office? That is not necessarily leadership reform. It may simply be moving the problem from one place to another.
The more fundamental question that Kenya's so-called reformists should be asking is this: How do we ensure continuity of government and national development regardless of who wins the next election?
KENYA'S DEVELOPMENT SHOULD NOT BEGIN FROM ZERO EVERY FIVE YEARS
There is something deeply dysfunctional about a political system in which every incoming administration feels compelled to distinguish itself by creating its own projects, programmes, slogans and development priorities.
A government comes into office with a manifesto. Five years later, another government arrives with another manifesto. The names change, the priorities change, the branding changes, and sometimes projects that have already consumed billions of shillings are delayed, abandoned, relaunched, renamed or fundamentally altered simply because they are associated with a previous administration.
This is not sustainable development.
A road does not become unnecessary because it was initiated by another President or Minister. A hospital does not become less important because its foundation stone was laid by a political rival. A dam, railway, irrigation scheme, power project, digital infrastructure programme or industrial investment does not lose its public value when there is a change of government.
Public projects should belong to the Republic, not to the politicians who initiated them. That is the reform Kenya should be discussing.
Kenya already recognises the importance of long-term development planning. Vision 2030 was established as the country's long-term development blueprint, with successive five-year Medium-Term Plans designed to translate that long-term vision into programmes and projects.
The architecture therefore exists. What is missing is stronger political and institutional commitment to continuity.
WE SHOULD NOT SOLVE POLITICAL SHORT-TERMISM BY CREATING POLITICAL PERMANENCE
The argument for a 10-year, non-renewable presidential term by Hon. Ibrahim Abdi Saney, deserves serious consideration because governments do need time to implement complex projects.
But there is an obvious danger in assuming that giving one administration ten years automatically produces better governance. It could just as easily produce ten years of bad policy.
A President who knows that he or she will never face another election after taking office would have no electoral incentive to respond to citizens in the second half of that decade. Elections are not merely about removing leaders; the possibility of re-election can also provide a mechanism for some accountability.
A non-renewable ten-year presidency could therefore eliminate one problem; short-term political calculations, while potentially weakening another democratic safeguard: the people's ability to reward or punish performance through the ballot.
More importantly, it assumes that the President is the institution through which continuity must be achieved. That is precisely where the debate should be challenged.
A mature state should not need to keep one individual in power for ten years to maintain a development project.
If a country can only complete long-term infrastructure or development programmes by extending the tenure of its President or Parliament, then the weakness is not primarily the presidential term. The weakness is the institutional framework governing national development.
MANIFESTOS SHOULD NOT BECOME NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESET BUTTONS
Political parties should absolutely be allowed to present their own manifestos. Elections are supposed to offer citizens choices.
But there is a difference between giving voters a choice over how the country should achieve its objectives and giving every new administration unlimited freedom to determine whether previous national objectives should continue to exist.
That distinction matters.
A political party should be able to say: "We disagree with the previous government's approach to agriculture, healthcare, transport, housing or industrialisation, and we will pursue a better approach."
That is democracy.
But it should not necessarily be able to say: "Because this project was started by the previous government, we will abandon it."
That is not necessarily reform. It can amount to institutional waste.
Kenya needs a framework in which governments can change policies, correct mistakes.
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