Kenya: Constitutional change?
Kenyans are about to vote on whether to alter the country’s power structure.
Some 50 years after independence, Kenya is considering whether to implement the first major overhaul of its constitution.
Wednesday’s referendum is also the first national poll since the presidential election of 2007.
The violence that followed that event was, in part, the impetus for this proposed contitutional change.
The hope is that reducing the executive power of the presidency in favour of a more regionally-based power structure and administration, will reduce the tribal tensions that play a big part in Kenyan politics.
But the fear is that it will achieve the opposite and divide the major players more.
Is Kenya ready for a new constitution?
Inside Story, with presenter Teymoor Nabili, discusses with Charles Kanjama, a lawyer who has been advising the “No Camp”, Agnes Gitau, the co-director of The Kenya London News, and David Anderson, a professor of African Politics at the University of Oxford.
This episode of Inside Story aired from Tuesday, August 3, 2010.