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"speaker_name": "Mr. Obwocha",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Planning and National Development",
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"content": " Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I would like to second this Motion and emphasise the importance of having the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) working. We know that there is no EALA right now because of the Kenyan position which has brought this quagmire. Parliament should set a precedent for future election of Members to EALA. I regret that if we had listened to the Chair, we would not have found ourselves in this position. Mr. Speaker, Sir, you did invite hon. Members of this House to make proposals or suggestions to the rules. So far, the document that has been laid before us has been received from various views that the Chair received. I would like to mention only one or two issues; that, when we were looking at these rules that hon. Members were raising--- I want to put it to Kenyans that, since Kenya is going into coalition politics, imagine a situation where there are 10, 15 or 20 political parties in one coalition that forms either the Opposition or the Government. You are going to have 20 chairmen and 20 party leaders. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to propose that the harmonization of having the Leader of Government Business or the Leader of the Official Opposition, who is going to put these names together, is a permanent feature of this House. Since there are so many chairmen, it is going to be very, very difficult to have the nominations done. Secondly, some of the chairmen may not be hon. Members of Parliament; they will be outside parliament. Therefore, it will be very, very difficult; there will be a conflict of interest and it will be almost impossible for Parliament to make a decision to have these members. Mr. Speaker, Sir, those of us who were in the Eighth Parliament saw this problem when there was the Social Democratic Party (SDP), where the Chairman, Apollo Njonjo, was not an hon. Member of Parliament. Therefore, we want to draw from those experiences and indicate that what has been drawn here is the most suitable, in my own view, to harmonize the issue of nominations. As we know, there are no names, it is a question of approving these rules so that we can go to the second step, where parliamentary parties would have chosen their nominees. Finally, Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is an internal matter, particularly in political parties. These are issues which are resolved within either the political parties, or in our own case, within our own country. If there is an issue, it can be sorted out by our own High Court. I am sure that is why these rules were proposed here. With those few remarks, I beg to second. 1586 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 23, 2007"
}