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"id": 225147,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kajwang",
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"legal_name": "Gerald Otieno Kajwang",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. That was the chairman of a splinter group of KANU. The hon. Member should listen very carefully, because we are talking about political parties, and there is trouble in KANU. So, this is very important for this country. KANU is the party that earned this country Independence. When there is trouble in KANU, there is trouble in all parties. There is trouble in NARC, FORD and in other parties. That is why we need the Political Parties Bill. So, I want to urge Mr. Biwott to listen very carefully. I started by saying that a political party must be independent. Secondly, the person who will be the custodian of the political parties must, himself, or whatever institution, be independent. Kenyans have been toying with the idea of where to domicile the political parties. We looked at the Registrar of Societies. We found that the societies registered by that office include churches, fishermen groups, clubs and many others. We thought that political parties are so important to this country that we need an institution that will register and manage them. So, we thought of the idea of creating an office of the registrar of political parties, but look at Clause 3(1) of this Bill. It says as follows:- \"There shall be an office of the Registrar of Political Parties, which shall be an office within the Commission, and shall have operational autonomy.\" Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, even the wording of this clause alone shows that it does not sit properly. This Bill will soon become an Act of Parliament, and will go to court for interpretation, in case of trouble. What is this thing called \"operational autonomy\"? Why should the office of the Registrar of Political Parties \"sit\" within the Commission? The definition is very complicated. Where, within the Commission, will it \"sit\"? What will be the role of the Commission over political parties? Will the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties be part of the Commission, or will it be an office \"sitting\" within the Commission's premises? Will it be subordinate to the Commission? Will it be an arm of the Commission? Will it be an organ of the Commission? What will it be within the Commission? You know, law is very important. When we make it, we have to be very serious. We should, for instance, decide that our political parties are going to be registered and managed by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), in which case we should provide, in this Bill, specific powers to be exercised by the ECK, including the power to make rules and regulations pertaining to the conduct of political parties, as well as provide for an officer, within the ECK, who will actualise some of these functions. That would be fine. If that were the case, we would not even have to provide for the creation of the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties in the Bill. So long as we provide that political parties will be registered by the ECK, the ECK itself can create the office of a registrar or a manager, or whatever the ECK will want to call that office to discharge that function. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you can, therefore, see the half-heartedness in this clause. Somebody is pretending that we are creating an independent body, but we are also putting it in the ECK, and there is no clear-cut definition as to how that body will relate to the ECK. There is something called \"operational autonomy\", which is very clouded. That is very \"big\" English, but I April 19, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 807 do not know what it means. I have been a teacher of English, but I do not know the meaning of \"operational autonomy\", which is not any other autonomy. So, if the proposed Office of the Registrar of Political Parties will be autonomous of the Commission, then why should it \"sit\" at the Commission? The Commission itself is autonomous, because we have created it in the Constitution. It is independent. So, why create another office, which is supposed to be autonomous, within an autonomous institution?"
}