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"id": 470704,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/470704/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "July 10, 2014 SENATE DEBATES 27 Sen. Kajwang",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I am sorry to my leader. I thought that he wanted to interfere with my contribution. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, let me say something about ideology. Of course, there is no party that starts and becomes a serious party without some ideology. Ideology really is something that attracts you to that party. Of course, it could be that the leader comes from your tribe - that is the first ideology in this country, unfortunately – or from your religion. That is unfortunate also. But, really, there are two serious ideologies in this country. Communists of course died, but there is still something that remains, about whether you are social democrats and believe in growth and capitalism but, at least, with some social intervention to deal with poverty issues; the kind of problems that the Democrats are having with the Republicans in America. They are not sometimes very different when they debate, but when it comes to intervening on health on behalf of the poor, workers and taxing the rich, there are serious ideological differences. I think that those ideologies and differences are still there even in the British Parliament. When they say that education does not have to be supported by the Government or school fees must be raised, then you see a serious disagreement between the Lords and workers in that country, and their political parties are usually different. There are parties that are supported by workers, who are largely the poor and the owners of capital. Even in this country, if we look at the parties, we will know which party is largely supported by the owners of the wealth and the people who work for them. They are usually in different parties. But there could not be too many variations, but maybe two or three variations, including liberal democrats and so on. But the bottom line is that the intention was not to have thousands of parties in this country. If we open this can of worms and allow this, then all of us will start political parties. I am sure that I will go and start a party that I will only sell in Homa Bay. I will persuade them that Homa Bay can only benefit as long as Sen. Kajwang becomes very strong and goes and bargains with Prof. Kindiki on some of these issues. They will elect me and then, of course, I will go to the taxman and say: “Now, give me my money for this year.” It will not help this country. It may help me or that party of Homa Bay but, definitely, it goes against the spirit of the Act and the Constitution. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for that reason, I do not think that this amendment is amenable. Just like the Senator for Nyeri has suggested, we need to go into a serious dialogue on this issue and say: Where do we want to take our political parties and what do we do with the funding issue? Probably, we could even increase the threshold, but we can also limit them. Maybe, we need to reduce the 5 per cent or increase it a little bit. But this is not a matter that can be settled in a debate like this. That makes me say that for the time being, I do not think that this Bill meets the threshold for which we created the Political Parties Act and Chapter in the new Constitution. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I oppose. 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."
}