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{
    "id": 224607,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/224607/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 218,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Poghisio",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 202,
        "legal_name": "Samuel Losuron Poghisio",
        "slug": "samuel-poghisio"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to continue from where my senior colleague and friend has ended, with the appeal that he never got to finish! I will not take as long as he did. I hope I will finalise my contribution in less time. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is a very crucial Bill to be debated in this House. I am glad that I have the opportunity to discuss something about political parties in this House. I believe that this House, especially this Parliament, does not merit discussing this Bill. But since it has to be done by somebody in some \"House\", we can go ahead and debate this Bill. I do not think we are the best to exemplify any reforms on political parties, being who we are in this House and, specifically, in this Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to thank the Minister for publishing this Bill. It April 25, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 955 is a straight forward Bill. It only attempts to create a framework in which we can build political parties in this country as we go along. I have said that, in this country, what we have are vehicles to go to Parliament. We do not really have political paries. They are just names of political parties. They are vehicles, bicycles or motor cycles that take us to Parliament. We can see that from the very recent events. Let us take the case of Magarini Constituency by-election. If I am an aspirant in one vehicle going to Parliament and it is derailed or, somehow, the brakes fail, I jump out of that vehicle and get into the next one, which is not related to the first one in any way. People do not believe in political parties. Kenyans are nomadic when it comes to political parties. We move a lot. So, when we define our political parties, we need to understand our own culture and the context. We are not faithful to political parties. We do not have clear definitions of political parties. Even the definitions that we have do not define political parties. This document is a framework. It is a sketch on which to build our political parties for the future. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, having said that, I would like to move to Part I of the Bill. I agree with most of the definitions. But the one that confounds me is the one that defines the founding members of political parties. It reads:- \"Founding members of a political party\" means the persons who are specified in the written declaration under section 16(2) to have contributed or offered to contribute either in cash or in kind to the initial assets of the party in respect of the first year of its existence.\" At the moment, we have founding members of very many political parties. The same people are founding members of several other political parties. That situation will not change. What we need to do, and we cannot legislate, is look out for the behaviour or mannerisms of Kenyans as we go out to multi-party dispensation. This is the only Parliament in many years where- --"
}