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{
    "id": 390498,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/390498/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "political party known as the United Democratic Forum Party (UDF). I can tell you for sure that what we went through to get this party registered was not a walk in the park especially for the new upcoming parties. The reason the African National Congress Party (ANC) in South Africa celebrated their 100 years of existence is because it has been built on a very serious foundation as was spoken to by the Senator for Kwale. That also applies to Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania which has also been in existence for some time. I have been to Tanzania and met the Muungano wa Vijana wa Chama cha Mapinduzi (MVCCM) which is like the youth wing of CCM. I can tell you right now if it is not complete already, they are putting up the tallest building in Dar es Salaam. That is a way of ensuring that it is self-dependant. That will take care of what Sen. Kagwe talked about; briefcase parties. When we founded the UDF party, I personally was looking forward to a party that can be owned by the people as a public entity; that will not have the cult-like following that we have seen in the parties in this country; that even if the leader of that party exits – God forbid, either by death or even by moving to another party – that party outlives the leadership of that party. Madam Temporary Speaker, some of us who were born in the late 1970s or in the 1980s may have read a lot about the single party regime. I know some have lived through it – and we have Senator Number one in the House – we know they have gone through the single party regime in this country which, by the way, they had an idea. As KANU – and it has been noted by one of the Senators as they contributed – it has gone on and on. Why has KANU survived that long? It has survived because it has an asset base. I think it was the richest when we submitted wealth declarations to the Registrar of Political Parties as it has the biggest asset base to sustain and run itself without waiting for someone to donate to it. Madam Temporary Speaker, if I am running a party that is supposed to sponsor candidates to leadership in this country and I am the one who is taking care of its financial needs, there must be the question of what is in it for me. We cannot run away from that; I have to be given a very good reason why I need to put my hard earned money into a political party as a person. It would mean that whatever I need done has to be done. First of all, even the officials in that party have to take care of my interests so that any time I want anything moved anywhere, they do not even have the moral standing to question me because I am funding the party. I think we have come a long way in ensuring that this is taken care of; the new laws that are guiding our elections – the Elections Act, the Constitution and the Political Parties Act – have tried to address this issue. When we were registering parties – and I know many of us who were officials of political parties or have been even in the run up to the election – will tell you that it was not easy. First of all, the threshold that was put, you had to ensure that you had more than 1,000 members registered with your party in more than half of the counties; that is 24 counties. Then you had to have offices in more than half of the counties that were operational. The Registrar of Political Parties even went round looking at what type of furniture you had put in that office. If you borrowed a room, painted it and put in it a plastic chair, they would tell you that is not permanent. Those queries were raised. 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."
}