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{
    "id": 1017144,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1017144/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 257,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kipipiri, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Kimunya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": "In the Senate, it was the same because it was to oversee the local authority level. That is how the names were included. Remember, in the National Assembly, it was supposed to be mixed members. There was no way you could use mixed member in the Senate because for the Senate, it was to be one Member per county. For the National Assembly, each political party was to bring its people. In the Senate, the 16 women nominees do not have voting rights on county matters, but they can vote on other matters being debated in the Senate. They were to cater for other issues affecting women in the 14 devolved functions. Be it as it may, unfortunately, Bomas did not succeed. It was defeated in 2005. In 2010, the Committee of Experts tinkered with some things in the Harmonised Draft Constitution, but forgot to harmonise the new first-past-the-post electoral system with the provisions in Article 27(3) and Article 81(b). That is why we are in this quagmire. Under Article 1, the sovereign power belongs to the Kenyan people. It is them to determine who to represent them. So, the absence of a voting system in the Constitution created the zebra style system and any other system you put in place will contradict Article 1. I am not a lawyer, but I was at the Bomas of Kenya. I followed that discussion ever since we brought the first amendment with Hon. Martha Karua in the 10th Parliament. I was in the Government. The second amendment was brought by the late Hon. Mutula Kilonzo. I was here and we were told that the amendment would go nowhere. The amendment contradicted Article 1. We are now in this situation and, Hon. Members, we need to figure out how we can ensure that the 30-40 per cent women representation is actualised. The Supreme Court advisory that was given in 2015 said the implementation of the two-thirds gender rule was to be progressive. It is just not about laws. It is about affirmative action. How do you empower the women out there to have the power to run for political office? It is a big issue we cannot achieve here by saying that we pass a law to actualise the two-thirds gender rule. You cannot do that without contravening the Constitution. As Hon. John Mbadi said, this is an opportunity to do a comprehensive review of the Constitution and see if we need a mixed member arrangement, so that we can have the zebra situation or if Kenyans can afford a bigger Parliament with 80 extra women being voted in without people feeling that it is a wrong thing, so that we can get the parity that we want. That will happen at some point. As we debate on this matter, we have 70 plus Members of Parliament who are ladies. I would like to start a conversation with them so that we can take them to a retreat somewhere for one to three weeks. We lock them up there and ask them to give us a solution on how we are going to sort out the two-thirds gender rule."
}