YVONNE'S TAKE: What if we were France?

In France this week, Prime Minister François Bayrou fell on his own sword. He called a vote of confidence on his austerity budget, confident his numbers would hold. Parliament thought otherwise. They voted him out — 364 votes to oust him against 194 in his support.

Just like that, the fifth Prime Minister to go since 2022; five in three years. Not because of coups, not because of street uprisings, but because Parliament — elected, empowered, independent — did its job and held the Executive to account.

Now, imagine that scenario in Kenya, would our MPs have ousted him, or would they have closed ranks? Might we have had press conferences outside the precincts of Parliament with leaders from the French Prime Minister’s home town claiming that their man, mtu wetu, is under attack? Oh, and I am sure we would have seen a trooping to the State House for “consultations,” or a “Parliamentary Group meeting” to guide them on how to vote. They likely would have returned with a united front and a “consensus” on how to vote.

They might even have saved him and his austerity cuts, no matter how unpopular. Reminds me of the way ours did with the Finance Bill while thousands of young Kenyans were protesting outside Parliament’s gates.

When the President, facing the fury of the streets, dramatically declined to sign that very bill into law just days later, the same MPs who had bulldozed it through Parliament trooped back to State House. This time, to clap. To applaud the President for rejecting the very bill they had so loyally passed.

That is not oversight. That is theatre. And a very expensive one, at that.

So, Yes, France has had five Prime Ministers in three years. Their political system may look unstable from the outside. But perhaps instability is the price of accountability because their Parliament has teeth. It can bite. It can say No.

Here, our Parliament’s teeth are only bared when it yawns. Accountability is whispered in rallies, shouted in funerals, but muted on the floor of the House.

Maybe Emmanuel Macron should borrow a leaf from the Kenyan playbook. If he had a Parliament like ours — a rubber stamp, always ready to clap on command — he wouldn’t be on his fifth Prime Minister. He’d still be on his first, budgets, economic turmoil and all.