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{
    "id": 390511,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/390511/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 276,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "want to strengthen their parties. For example, when it comes to registration, you will find that they are even giving free membership. If you really want finances to strengthen your party, how do you give free membership to members? They even go to the extent of registering people through M-Pesa accounts so that you appear to have many members yet they are not real. This is one of the reasons why political parties have failed to grow. We, as legislators, have to also share in the blame of lack of growth of political parties. We had very good intentions of putting legislation in place to stop party hoping because this is one of the biggest killers of political parties, where loyalty of members of political parties is questionable. When one fails in the nominations, instead of bowing and supporting his opponents, he hops to another party. If you recall, we had passed legislation to stop party hopping but when we were nearing elections, that law was amended. This did a lot of damage to political parties. People move to other parties not because they subscribe to the ideologies of that party but simply because they want to have power and to be elected. We should instill discipline in our political systems and parties and reduce the numbers to a manageable level. Why should we have 50 political parties? How should the Exchequer fund them? Thank God we have a limitation of 5 per cent of all the votes. However, as Sen. Kagwe said, how do you calculate that? The same voter who voted for the Member of County Assembly (MCA) is the same one who voted for the Senators and for the Members of the National Assembly and yet these are counted as separate votes. The formula is wrong. As I support that the Registrar of Political Parties should release funds immediately as the Motion requests, I also think that this Act needs to be reviewed. We need to set guidelines so that we have a thoroughly researched law that aims at strengthening political parties. Fifty years after Independence - G. G. Kariuki was there and thank God he is still around - the development of political parties has completely deteriorated. There are no political systems or loyalty to political parties. There are no ideologies. However, if we worked hard to put legislation that would curtail party hopping and make sure that if one is a member of a political party, they subscribe to the party and regularly pay money to the party, that would make people be committed to their parties. They would know their party of choice. I support."
}