The Mzalendo website that specialises in information about the Kenyan parliament and elections has posted the text of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act. There is no information yet at the official site of the Kenyan parliament, or Bunge.

Assuming the Mzalendo information is accurate and that the bill is not amended during the passage through parliament, then Kenya will indeed become semi-presidential.

Article 4 (b) of the Act states that the office of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister shall become vacant if “the National Assembly passes a resolution which is supported by a majority of all members of the National Assembly … declaring that the National Assembly has no confidence in the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister …”. This wording stops slightly short of saying that the government is collectively responsible to parliament, but it also indicates more than just individual ministerial responsibility.

There is no indication that the president can dismiss the PM, so the reforms, if passed, would establish a premier-presidential variant of semi-presidentialism in Kenya.

In an East African context, there are now three candidates for semi-presidentialism. In addition to Kenya, there is also Uganda and Tanzania. There has already been one post on Uganda in this blog. To recap, here the appointment of the PM must be approved by parliament, but there is no provision for parliament to censure either the PM individually or government collectively. So, Uganda is on the cusp of semi-presidentialism. In Tanzania, the situation is somewhat confusing. Article 53 states that the government is collectively responsible to the National Assembly. However, Article 54, which deals with votes of no-confidence, only refers to the Prime Minister individually. In both Uganda and Tanzania, the president can dismiss the PM, so both would be president-parliamentary versions of semi-presidentialism.

Having said that, if East Africa is defined so as to include countries such as Madagascar, Mozambique and Rwanda, then there are currently three other semi-presidential countries in the region as well. Moreover, the Comoros was semi-presidential for two periods during the 1980s and 1990s, as was briefly Burundi in the mid-1990s.