Scholar Assesses Kenya Politics

This is the principal problem with a coalition government. The French have, on occasion, experienced co-habitation, where the party in control of the legislature and therefore the premiership is not the party of the directly elected president. It works well enough but the norm of such co-habitation especially in new democracies (examples include Nigeria around independence and recently Timor Leste) generally collapse. The problem is not confusion; the problem is in fact the clarity of competing interests. This is even more important where the prime minister is a strong personality -- particularly when personality matters politically -- and institutions are very weak.

More importantly, from a democratic development point of view, there is a danger that the "imperial presidency" has been partially split (certainly not halved) but the preponderance of political power still resides within the executive. Even in more established democracies -- classic cases of coalition governments are Israel and Italy -- coalition governments barely last 12-18 months. And we should remember that these arise from electoral systems that force coalitions, not political deals hammered in contexts of violence and low trust.