By IPS Correspondents
NAIROBI, Dec 8 2005 (IPS)

Kenya’s new cabinet is scheduled to be sworn in at 10.00 local time (07.00 GMT) Friday. It promises to be a shorter ceremony than usual: two ministers and 17 assistant ministers have already declined invitations to join the cabinet.

The new ministerial team is intended to replace the cabinet that was sacked Nov. 23, after voters rejected a proposed constitution that President Mwai Kibaki had supported. The outcome of the constitutional referendum (held Nov. 21) was widely perceived as a vote of no confidence in the administration of Kibaki, who saw his National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) split over the proposed constitution.

Seven former ministers who broke ranks with the president over the charter have been excluded from the new cabinet, named Dec. 7; the team is meant to include 29 ministers and 45 assistant ministers. Most loyalists were retained, save for former transport minister Chris Murungaru who has been tainted by allegations of corruption.

“Over the last two weeks, I have consulted widely in my effort to reconstitute a cabinet which is cohesive, balanced, efficient and better placed to deliver to Kenyans,” Kibaki said in a televised address.

However, a number of the political parties that make up NARC have questioned whether these consultations were quite as broad as the president indicated.

“Ford-Kenya expected a consultative approach when the president was forming the cabinet, but this did not happen,” said Musikari Kombo, chairman of Ford-Kenya (the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya). Kombo turned down the local government portfolio.

“Ford-Kenya will not take up positions in the just-constituted cabinet. To do so will be underwriting a mischief and a blatant injustice to the party and its membership,” he told journalists.

Along with Kombo, the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) Orwa Ojode has refused a cabinet seat. Ojode was offered the post of environment minister.

In addition, a question mark is hanging over former health minister Charity Ngilu, who said she would have to consult members of the National Party of Kenya – which she heads – before accepting Kibaki’s invitation to continue in her post.

This decline of ministerial positions is unprecedented in Kenya.

“People have realised that the president is not popular, and for them to reject cabinet posts at this time is likely to earn them popularity with the masses,” says political reporter Elly Wamari.

“They are also realigning themselves for the 2007 general elections, where popularity with the masses will count.”

The fear is that this cold-shouldering of the cabinet will lead to a bigger rebellion on the part of the LDP, which played a key role in lobbying for the proposed constitution to be rejected. The seven former ministers who were locked out of the new cabinet are all LDP members.

“Even though it was absolutely inevitable, the move has given LDP a license to revolt.(The party) will go full throttle, including going for a vote of no confidence against Kibaki,” political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi told IPS.

“This requires (the support of) 51 percent of members of parliament. It is possible to reach this percentage because there is a possibility that a lot of people are going to get dissatisfied by the new government.”

There are also concerns that angry LDP members will attempt to frustrate Kibaki’s efforts to govern by shooting down bills in parliament.

LDP relations with Kibaki soured amidst successful attempts by the president’s National Alliance Party to ensure that the constitution put to voters made provision for a powerful presidency.

An earlier version of the charter had proposed that executive authority be shared between the presidency, and the newly-created post of prime minister. LDP leader Raila Odinga was reportedly promised the position of prime minister in return for supporting NARC during the December 2002 election that brought it to power.

However, some are more concerned by who is in the cabinet than who has been left out.

“We expected the president to give in to demands by Kenyans to re-energise the fight against corruption by dropping those whose names have featured in such scandals. Only Murungaru departed. The president should renew his resolve to root out corruption,” says Geoffery Birundu, coordinator of the Name and Shame Corruption Networks Campaign, an alliance of groups working to eradicate graft.

While Kibaki came to office on a promise to address corruption, his rule has been marred by a number of scandals – some involving substantial sums.

These include the payment of an estimated 95 million dollars to Anglo-Leasing, a foreign company of dubious repute. The money was intended to finance a system for producing passports which could not be used by terrorists, and for building a forensic laboratory for criminal investigations.

Part of the 95 million dollars has been recovered. However, no-one has been prosecuted for the matter, which came to light last year.

Excerpt: