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{
    "id": 35378,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/35378/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 393,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Eseli",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": "Despite the various persons who have spoken on this Bill, I have only heard one voice supporting the issue of pre-election coalitions. We must be awake to the fact that pre-election coalitions have been the cause of Government instability in this country. The first pre-election coalition of NARC led to a lot of instability in Government. This means the development that we achieved under NARC could even have been more if we did not have that instability. So, I do not think we can craft a Bill to become an Act, which institutionalizes instability in Government. Pre-election coalitions result in people of divergent views trying to form a Government, and thereafter start rocking the boat. We cannot legitimize that kind of situation. Even as we speak, the two Coalition partners are themselves pre-election coalitions. The PNU is a pre-election coalition. The ODM and UDM are pre-election coalitions. You have seen the instability that this arrangement has brought in those two parties. Are we then going to legitimize that through this Bill? Are we saying that we no longer want a stable Government in this country; should we legitimize a position through an Act of Parliament, so that in future, we continue that way? My party is a coalition partner in the PNU, but I can assure that PNU is a queer animal. It eats its own children and adopts the neighbours’ children. To make it worse, in terms of the political parties funding, the PNU eats the children’s food in the PNU coalition. It does not give them the money. So, are we going to legitimize that kind of situation by passing this Bill? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have the feeling that this Bill was crafted with a certain pre-arranged position in mind. We want to legitimize some of the going zones in political parties that have led to instability through party hopping, et cetera . We want to say that if you are in a coalition, you are allowed to campaign for another party. That is what has allowed some people to jump from one party to another, saying that they are in a coalition. Some say: “I could have come in through party A, but because we are a coalition of party B, I can jump to party C, which is also a coalition of party B.” We should not legitimize that kind of thing if we want to grow democracy in this country. We need to be very careful how we go about it. In my view, this Bill is good but it needs thorough overhaul to make sure that we have proper home-grown democracy. We should clean this Bill properly; it is supposed to bring sanity in political parties. We are supposed to bring about hygiene in the way we behave. I am afraid that this Bill tends to contain a lot of germs, which will lead to lack of hygiene in the way we do our political parties business. I believe that this can be cured if we do a thorough overhaul. We can get something better that can govern our political space. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}