Kenya's Constitutional Reform Referendum

In: Review of African political economy, Band 33, Heft 107, S. 141-142

Abstract

In this essay on the Kenyan constitutional reform referendum (2002), the author comments on the present state of the Kenyan constitution to argue that the new draft offers limited advantages to the new democracy. The current document is asserted to be an essentially colonial document that was produced in London, & maintains the status quo of underwriting property rights, & the centralized authoritarianism of the (settler) colonial state. Contestation of the constitution is described as a three way struggle between the government, political parties, & the civil society bodies. The new Wako draft, drawn up solely by Parliament, is labeled as a hijacking of the process by the politicians, and is yet a contested document. J. Harwell