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"speaker_name": "Ms. Karua",
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"legal_name": "Martha Wangari Karua",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, why, again, do I call this Bill a very poor copy made using a carbon paper that is exhausted? It is because Section 17 of the current Political Parties Act, which is now Clause 14, states clearly that if a Member of Parliament goes out to support other political parties, or their agenda, he will be deemed to have resigned from his political party. Why are we leaving that decision to the Registrar? What if the Registrar becomes a tool of one political party as, in my view, is the case now? I believe that the current Registrar behaves like the Registrar of a certain party. That is why she cannot even obey court orders. What if we have such a Registrar? Let us leave it to the law to deem such a person to have resigned, and if a person is aggrieved, he will go to the Tribunal and to the High Court. I want to state that we need to open up appeals on matters of law to go beyond the High Court, and to the Supreme Court. I am looking at a scenario where a political entity is deregistered. That is not a simple matter. It affects freedom of association – the political freedom articulated in our Constitution. It is a matter that should not end with the Tribunal. It should not end with the High Court. On matters of law, such an appeal should rest with the Supreme Court, because it will be a violation of rights. It may very well be on the issue of fundamental human rights of the affected individual, as enshrined in Chapter 4 of our Constitution. Therefore, we need to improve on where we were in the old Act, move forward, and not have a weaker Act than we had. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to look at Clause 10, which is on merger of political parties. This is a phenomenon that is unknown to the civilised world. Perhaps we are lowering our standards, as a developing country. We should not lower our standards. Mergers are concepts of the so-called “G7”. Are we trying to put theories brought by individuals into the law – theories which have not been roundly discussed? If they are marketed in this Parliament and accepted, so be it, but I think that the object and purpose of forming a political party is to capture political power through the ballot, and be able to implement policies and run the country using policies of that party. It can never be the object of a political party to form coalitions. Therefore, with respect, it defeats common sense why we would have a clause on mergers. A clause for dissolution may be appropriate, but I doubt that there is a constitutional practice anywhere else that provides for mergers, or coalitions before elections. Coalitions are actually known to come after elections, after every party has exhausted itself in an attempt to capture political power and then it finds, on the finishing line, that it does not have enough muscle in Parliament or in any institution. That is when political parties go into a coalition. I am urging the House: Let us think very carefully. We should not distort democracy. We should not accommodate ideas that are half-baked, and that are not well considered before we pass this legislation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Clause 34, sub-clause (b), on the distribution of funds, the work of the Registrar cannot be merely to manage the funds. It must be to manage and distribute. I prefer the words in the old Act “administer the fund”. That incorporates more than managing it. The Registrar must manage and distribute the fund in accordance with the law. If you just put “manage”, given the way we like arguments, we are going to say that the Registrar should not be the one to distribute the funds. Let us go for clear language that leaves no ambiguity. We need not go for litigation, the way we have been forced to do, because the Registrar failed to perform his or her duties. I am happy with the qualifications of the Registrar – a person with background in finance. That is commendable, because they are going to do a lot of work. When it comes to the distribution of the funds, I want to laud the Minister for the clause that says 90 per cent of the monies shall be distributed in proportion to the votes garnered. I would go ahead and say 95 per cent. It is not right to give the Registrar 10 per cent. What if the political parties are awarded Kshs1 billion by Parliament? Why would we give the Registrar a whole Kshs100 million to administer? Let the Registrar get no more than 5 per cent. I would actually reduce it to 2 per cent, but because we want an efficient office, let them have 5 per cent and let the political parties have 95 per cent. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am glad that the strict criterion is the number of votes garnered. We should go ahead and say that a party that does not garner at least 5 per cent of the national vote should not qualify for funding. That is what is done in other jurisdictions, and that will discourage formation of parties which hope to just come and get money from the political parties' kitty. I want to say it very clearly because of the contributions I have heard before me, the law as it is discourages hopping from one party to another but because of impunity that is precisely what people are doing. You hold yourself out as a member of one party and tomorrow, you are in another party for expediency. We do not have to go to the records of the Clerk on public utterances of individuals at different times. At one time you are supporting this party. When your circumstances change, you run away in a different direction. Let us stop doublespeak. Let us know that there is the law, and that we are disobeying it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if political parties have no mechanisms to discipline their Members, we will not grow democracy. I want to urge hon. Members to connect the governance of a country with the governance of political parties. A government is as good as the political party that forms it. The problems we are having in this Grand Coalition Government can be traced to the political parties forming the coalition. We therefore want to use political parties as a tool of improving governance in the country. That is why this Act should be looked at very keenly. Serious amendments should be made to it so that we can improve the operations of political parties and strengthen them. Let the money due to political parties be at the whims of the Minister or individuals. Let us find a mechanism of giving a certain threshold. When it comes to the application of those monies, we cannot say it cannot buy property. In Europe, the office of established political parties I visited was able to buy or construct buildings with the funding given. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, yes, you can stop political parties from going for speculative business activities with the money, but you cannot stop political parties from buying office buildings, if they wish. You can exclude everything else but the party offices can be constructed or purchased with the Political Parties Fund. Once again, let us not reduce the threshold of administrative expenses of political parties. At present the Act allows 25 per cent. Why do we want to reduce it to 10 per cent? Do we want to kill the operations of the parties? A party without offices, a party without a secretariat is a party without governance. If this Fund indeed is aimed at strengthening democracy through the parties, we must leave the administrative expenses from this Fund at 25 per cent. If a party does not need it, it can use as little as 10 per cent. But for a party that needs it, let us leave it to as much as 25 per cent so that parties can fulfill the objectives for which they were formed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would want to say that there is the creation of the Liaison Committee which is currently an informal committee set up by the Commission and the office of the Registrar. We have put it in the Act through Clause 35. However, no purpose is given for this Liaison Committee. Let us set the criteria to begin with for membership of this Committee, the participation of parties; the threshold and let us spell out functions. There is no need of elevating an informal committee to the status of the Act and not give it the direction that it will take. Currently, the Registrar is allowing people who were taken to the Liaison Committee by one party and have ceased to be members of that party. They were heard to say that the person was there in their individual capacity. This is not an amorphous group. This is not a chama; this is a Political Parties Liaison Committee. You can only be taken there by a political party. If we do not spell out these things, Kenyans are ingenious and sometimes it veers on the deceptive side. Let us not allow those who have deceptive minds to misinterpret the law. Let us spell it out very clearly. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in conclusion, yes, the Act is timely but being a poor copy drawn on a worn-out carbon, we must assist the Minister by putting real flesh, ensuring that it is in tandem with the Constitution and try and finalize with it. This is one of the very many Acts Parliament is being told will be late on 27th if we do not pass them. Let us look at it. Obviously, Minister do not press us for this week. We need time to do these things. Let it be next week. Let us finalize it but let us give a lot of thought. The things we do in this Bill, will determine the political shape this country takes. I beg to support with those amendments."
}