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{
    "id": 334497,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/334497/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 352,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ruto",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we had quite some eloquent contribution on this particular Bill. While I have no particular reason to oppose them entirely, there is need for us to reflect on a number of issues that we have been trying to rectify since the advent of the new Constitution. We had reasons to try to bring discipline in political parties, including ensuring that each political party has membership. There has been chaos during nomination time and some political parties belong to individuals and we really wanted to get rid of that possibility. We have also had serious manipulations in certain areas especially in urban areas. You will find one group belonging to all parties. They will come and cause havoc in one party and move to another one to cause chaos, thus continuously creating confusion. During the discussion for the drafting of the new Constitution, all these issues came into the fore. The idea is captured in Article 92 of the Constitution where it was envisaged that during this era, there would be discipline. There would be an office established under Article 92 to deal with registration within political parties. It says, among other things that, Parliament shall enact legislation to provide for several things including:- “(e) The registration and supervision of political parties.” If, for the long haul, we deny the Registrar of Political Parties the ability to know which members belong to which party, we would have defeated the whole exercise. In fact, we have gone ahead to provide funding for those political parties after the coming elections. If we are saying that there is no need for all these registrations, then we should not even use public funds to try to manage political parties because those funds might go towards the personal expenses of officials. At this stage, I am not opposing the need to liberalize, but I would rather Mr. Midiwo indicates that this Bill is provisional and that it is for this period that the office of the Registrar for Political Parties is being established. If you pass this as a law as envisaged in Article 92, then we are going in the wrong direction."
}