Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 390448,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/390448/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 213,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Fund. Therefore, even as much as political parties would wish the Registrar to release the money, I think at the moment, it would be very difficult because the Fund is already in court because of how it was shared out. It is also important when we talk about political parties to understand that the Office of the Registrar has worked for so long in a very strenuous manner. It is time Parliament looked at the Office of the Registrar and empowered it so that it can also take on board the issues that are raised by political parties. Today if you look at what has been allocated to the Registrar, it is not even enough for her to have staff that can be able to monitor the political parties while we know that the reason the Fund was introduced was because we had reached a point where individuals had taken political parties and made them their own. Therefore, you had to dance to their tune in order to survive within that political party. Madam Temporary Speaker, especially for us, women politicians, we need to see political parties funded so that nobody can come and say that it is my money that is sustaining the party and, therefore, I will do what is within my powers to have who I want to be elected or given a nomination certificate. For me, it is very critical that we are talking about the Fund. It is also important to look back to the Act and amend it. When you look at what the Tenth Parliament amended, it was that you cannot get funding if you cannot get 5 per cent of the votes. This means that we in the coalitions, as much as we are calling for the Registrar to release the money, the coalitions have to sit down and agree on how to share the money they have received because we are only considering the Presidential vote. We have parties which entered into a coalition and supported one presidential candidate. What happens in this case? For me, the most important thing - I want to urge the Senator for Kisumu who is also the Secretary-General of ODM and other Secretary-Generals that it is time they looked at the Act and see how it can be amended. The law should be amended to ensure that we do not kill what we have struggled for since 1992 during the struggle for multipartysm. Where we are heading now, it means that only three parties are eligible to get funding. It is important to note that many political parties were not happy with the way the fund was shared and if we do not sit down and agree, we might end up spending a lot of time in the courts and the money will not be released until next year. We shall even get to the next financial year and the same thing will happen. Some people can just decide to do that so that they derail the process. I think we need to look at the Act and make the necessary amendments. We should sit down with the IEBC and make those amendments or agree as political parties that this is the way we would like it to be. The parties which had over one million votes, I believe are parties that should be eligible for funding. Madam Temporary Speaker, when you look at the Act, you find that as much as we are talking about the funding, many political parties, even the so called large political parties have not been able to sustain the 24 offices that we were told we must have. I know the most challenging part in this country is that after elections, nobody even cares about membership until we are just about to go for an election. But the money we are requesting for will help the parties to continue retaining their members because we will have outreach programmes to run within the counties. We also need to have offices of the parties within the counties. Therefore, it is not just something to play politics with. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}