Jubilee leaders from Mt. Kenya and rebels from Rift Valley are said to have resolved to back NASA leader Raila for President in 2022 and not Deputy President William Ruto.
The said leaders are unhappy with Ruto who and are increasingly seeing Raila as the alternative in an arrangement that could change the power matrix and the fixation in 2022.
This new 2022 plan will be given impetus by a government of national unity and eventual change of the Constitution to create new positions that will broadly share executive power.
Constitutional changes, according to the plan, will be initiated in 2020 well before the election. The government of national unity will create a political environment conducive to a non-polarising referendum.
The changes under discussion will create an executive that includes the President, Deputy President, Prime Minister and two deputies. The new structure will also bring politicians back into the Cabinet. They will attend and answer questions on the floor of Parliament.
Before the promulgation of the Constitution in 2010, Cabinet secretaries, then known as ministers, were selected by the President from among MPs.
Sources also said there is a proposal to expand the Cabinet from the current maximum of 22 to 30 to accommodate more elected leaders.
The proposed changes are likely to be processed through the 14-member Building Bridges Initiative formed by Uhuru and Raila on April 30.
The committee led by Martin Kimani and Paul Mwangi is expected to complete its work within a year. The team has began collecting views from the public on ending corruption.
NASA leaders Kalonzo and Mudavadi have embraced the new deal and have abandoned calls to go it alone in the 2022 race.
Kalonzo has since rejected pressure by critics of the handshake to take up the NASA leadership.
He argued then that there was no vacuum as Raila was still the NASA boss. Kalonzo is said to have agreed to go along with Raila, firming up his position when he embraced the deal at the National Prayer Breakfast on May 31. Mudavadi and Ford Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula, who have been trying to craft a party merger, did not attend.
