The endless alterations that defined Kenya’s quest for a ‘good’ constitution

The number of Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) Commissioners was increased from 4 to 21.

However the “gentlemen’s agreement” with regard to the manner of appointing the Commissioners was not written into the constitution — an omission that would come back to haunt the country a decade later.

After the 1997 elections, further government intransigence led religious leaders and civic groups to form a parallel constitutional reform process Ufungamano House, one that they said would be more “people-driven.”

The subsequent 15-member People’s Commission of Kenya (PCK) was eventually merged with the CKRC in June 2001 following the intervention of CKRC Chairman, Prof. Yash Pal Ghai.

The unified CKRC now set about its task of collecting Kenyans views on what they felt should be in the new Constitution, preparing a draft Constitution based on those views and organizing a National Constitutional Conference.

In 2003, delegates to the Conference held at the Bomas of Kenya agreed to a new Draft Constitution.

A bastardised version of the Bomas Draft, the so-called “Wako Draft,” was eventually put to a national referendum and rejected by Kenyans in November 2005.

In the new millennium, following the violence that accompanied the disputed 2007 elections, Parliament passed the Constitution of Kenya Review Act, 2008 creating a Committee of Experts to analyze the documents and drafts that came out of the CKRC process, resolve the contentious issues and come up with a harmonized draft.