The new gains and safeguards will not be realized if the citizenry do not fully understand the provisions of the new Constitution. An overwhelming number of Kenyans voted for the constitution, unfortunately many are still not aware of the contents as they actually are. This has led to distortions, particularly from our politicians when it comes to the interpretation of the material in the constitution.
According to the findings of a baseline survey Empowering Communities in the Implementation of the New Constitution, that was carried out in the months of November and December 2011, out of 95.5% of Kenyans who are aware of the existence of the new Constitution, only 54% understood some parts of the Constitution. Nearly one in every 5 individuals in this study relied on information from others regarding the constitution for aspects they thought they understood. This point out various speculative factors that would lead to such a situation such as absence of materials, low levels of literacy, lack of interest in reading, no confidence that one would read and understand the constitution on their own.
These findings point out the need for more dissemination of the Constitution material therein. Only 7 percent felt they understood the whole constitution. Majority (54 percent) understood part of it. As may be presumed many people are likely to read only certain parts of the constitution that they may feel is relevant to them or where their professions lives intersect with the issues therein. This finding thus indicates that many Kenyans may not still have read the whole document at a seating and may be ignorant of key chapters of the constitution.
Males did slightly better than women in reading the whole constitution or reading it at all compared to females. Interestingly, the majority who chose the wrong answer were women (55.4 percent) against 44.6 percent males who made the wrong choices. This may be linked to various demographic factors such as literacy, domestic chores, preferring interpretation from others as exhibited by the fact that more females than males knew and understood part of the constitution from others.
For those who reported that they had read and understood the whole constitution, the largest number came from Migori, followed by Nairobi, Garissa, Kiambu, Nandi, Makueni and last Kwale. For those who have only read and understood some of it, there is fairly good representation from all counties lead by Kiambu, makueni and Nairobi. Kwale, Nandi and Garissa had the least representation of those who had read and understood some parts of the constitution.
For those who had not read, surprisingly Nairobi had the largest representation followed by Garissa and then Nandi. In Kwale most respondents relied on others to understand the constitution followed by Nairobi and then Garissa while Kiambu least relied on others for interpretation of the Constitution.
Our research also shows an association between occupational status and understanding of the constitution. Those in formal employments’s bar for understanding all and some of the constitution is higher than for the other occupational categories. Most casuals have not read the constitution followed by farmers and then business people. Nearly equal proportions are happy to get information from others apart from students.
The data shows that as occupational mobility increased so did the levels of reading and understanding the constitution. The findings also indicate that as age increases, levels of understanding reduce. This suggests that the younger ages were more active in reading and understanding the constitution than their older cohorts. The finding has implications in terms of targeting the population for civic education.
Nearly a third of Kenyans think, contrary to the constitution that the legislative authority lies with the national government rather than the county whom 66.3 percent of the respondents identified accurately. Again nearly a third of respondents think that county government will be financed only by central government (34.3 percent) rather than both the central government and the county (60.1 percent).
There was a large proportion who indicated that voter registration takes place just before an election (48.2 percent). An understating of the continuous process of voter registration will ensure that enough people are registered and in good time. Less than half (47.4 percent) knew this fact while 2.6 percent opted not to answer the question, suggesting that they might not have had the information. Interestingly, 1.1 percent intimated at a life presidency, being completely unaware of an election every five years to elect the President. A few, 1.7 percent either didn’t know who didn’t answer.
Another surprise is that 6.7 percent of Kenyans think the President will be elected through mlolongo and 2.4 percent gave options of through affirmative action or didn’t answer. Nearly 91 percent (90.9 percent) knew that such elections will be held through ballot.
Article 140 (1) gives a very important provision in the Constitution to address the issue of challenging the outcomes of an election and due process thereafter articulated in (2) and (3) of the same Article. An overwhelming majority at 75.6 percent were aware of the provision that any person may file a petition in the Supreme Court to challenge the election of the President elect within 7 days after the declaration of the results of the presidential election. This is encouraging as Kenyans can then start due process in case of a flawed election as in 2007. Together with other constitutional provisions guiding the process from declaration by the chairperson of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to swearing and due processes therein, a repeat of 2007 is guarded.
Finally, Kenyans are hungry for education on the Constitution in various areas including: abortion, about the government, about leadership, about legislature, affirmative action, bill of rights and social justice, children’s rights, civil rights, county governments and their administration, devolution, devolved funds, differences between the old and new Constitution, elections, equality, executive, gender empowerment, human rights, labour laws, land and property ownership, land issues and boundaries, kadhi’s courts, land policies, land reforms, ministries and functions, power and devolution, the president, the Prime Minister, taxes and tax regulations, women rights, youth and youth participation.
There was a lot of effort and work that went in to ensure that rights of marginalized groups are encapsulated in the new Constitution. It is therefore imperative that citizens remain vigilant to ensure the government accords these rights in practice. The new Constitution has an expansive Bill of Rights that addresses inequalities encountered by different groups. It is important that these groups are empowered to clearly understand the provisions, and that their capacity to monitor the realization of these rights be enhanced.
Dr. Aggrey Willis Otieno 