The Broken Promise: Kenyatta’s Love for Abusive Constitutionalism and Imperial Presidency

Abstract

Unlike in the past when dictators would come to power through military coups, today’s dictators come to power through elections ( and in most of the times, they are elected by the majority), unlike in the yester-years where the dictators would promise to dismantle the constitution, the would-be dictators of today promise the realisation of human rights. Although everything might look so normal, no military tanks, no machine guns, no armed forces in the streets, the would-be dictators of today seek to achieve the same goals of the yester-years dictators. In this paper I will show how the current president has fallen to the autocratic temptation. I will show this by analyzing the following happenings in kenya : the muzzling of the registrar of civil societies who attempted to de register civil societies, Militarization of Nairobi county, attempt to control and direct the constitutional commissions, branding the Judiciary as Wakora, cooptation of the opposition through the famous handshake and the problematic use of Executive orders.