The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), the National Council of Churches of Kenya, and the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims have issued new demands to be discussed in the bipartisan talks scheduled for Monday, August 14.
On Friday, August 11, the leaders requested that representatives of President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga include national unity, cohesion, poverty, unemployment, and graft.
They contended that the five contentious issues were among the deeply ingrained traditional factors affecting Kenya’s peace and tranquillity.
In addition to outlining their demands, religious leaders urged the bipartisan talks to include experts and neutral entities such as religious organizations rather than focusing solely on politicians and legal experts.
While urging the Kenya Kwanza and Azimio la Umoja coalitions to include national unity as one of the topics to be discussed during the Bipartisan talks, religious leaders stated that while there have been some positive developments in terms of national unity in recent years, much more work remains to be done.
“This will ensure that there is no political bickering during the talks, giving citizens the opportunity to build their lives while leaders work to restore peace in the country,” Bishop Martin Kivuva read on the religious leaders’ behalf.
The leaders claimed in their statement that the lack of national cohesion can be attributed to several factors, including inequality because there is a significant gap in Kenya between communities and between the rich and the poor.
Bishop Kivuva raised concern over the state of poverty in the country, noting that it was concerning that several Kenyans still live below the poverty line.
On the issue of unemployment, the religious leaders stated that the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) indicated that the unemployment rate in Kenya stood at 5.5 percent in 2022.
