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{
    "id": 1066191,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1066191/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 157,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Linturi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 69,
        "legal_name": "Franklin Mithika Linturi",
        "slug": "franklin-linturi"
    },
    "content": "I do not understand how signatures were collected. This is one of the worst frauds in this country that is bigger than the Goldenberg Scandal or any other. This has demonstrated a situation where we are all captives of a few people in this country, where we cannot speak our minds freely, be allowed to give divergent opinions and people must interfere with institutions of oversight that are meant to protect the sovereignty of the people. Article 248 is about independent commissions. If you read Article 249, you will see the objects and purpose of these institutions, which are to protect the sovereignty of the people and promote constitutionalism. When we have a Bill that proposes to take away power from institutions and vest them in individuals, there can never be any other serious assault to our Constitution like what we are doing because this is even creating a bigger and stronger imperial President, which we should not be having at this material time. Madam Temporary Speaker, I am lucky to have been in this Parliament for quite some time. I am lucky that in 2008 we worked day and night to amend the Constitution of Kenya to share power. We should not ask ourselves why we did that. Are we getting ourselves back to 2008 that we have to amend the Constitution to create positions of power for individuals? I am repeating this because in the proposed constitutional amendment, I want to tell the country that the problem of this country is not about who is the president, and it does not matter which positions you want to create. We must be in a position to agree that in any election, there will always be a winner and a loser. Whenever somebody loses in an election and accepts, you can never have people fighting because of the results. They will always say that elections will come after five years, and they will be ready. I had the opportunity to debate and propose amendments to this Constitution. I think the threshold for making amendments according to the recommendations from Naivasha was 75 per cent. That is why we never amended it that time because we could not raise the numbers. I remember what happened that time. Concerning the creation of the positions of Leader of Opposition and positions of influence, so that somebody comes and mobilise their team within Parliament, we felt it was very unfair to leave a presidential candidate out of politics. That was seriously opposed before we even got to where the draft was done. Some of us had ideas on who we thought would be President. When we talk of amending or making a constitution, it must be done for posterity, bearing in mind that what we do should be for the good of the people and not a few individuals. It pains me knowing the kind of freedom that was secured through enactment of this Constitution, which is now continually getting eroded because of the failure of the system to implement it. We are behaving as if Kenya will never have any change in leadership. Let us think about politics and dynamics. Let us reason and see what we can do. This document will go to the people out there. This is not yours, but a document of a few people. We are only lying to ourselves because we have all decided to become subject to their ideas and minds. We are captives! Parliament has been captured. They are now getting to the Judiciary to capture it. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}