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{
    "id": 470798,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/470798/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 310,
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    "content": "Some of us are now wondering how Wiper, for example, will fund their activities and how Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale’s party, UDF, will support its activities. This also applies to FORD-(K) and all the others. I think it is important for us to look at how we can expand it to an extent that is reasonable without losing the intention of ensuring that we are able to create national parties in this country. Therefore, the debate we are having in this House is very healthy. Let us ask ourselves how far we can stretch and how narrow we can come in ensuring that we have political parties which are supported within the Political Parties Act. The second issue that was raised by the Registrar of Political Parties which is important is the constitutional doctrine of equality of votes. The fact that once political parties have presented their candidates in the various elections, when people of this Republic vote for a particular political party, that may not get to the threshold of 5 per cent, but 3 per cent tells you that quite a good number of Kenyans subscribe to the ideology of that political party. Therefore, if you want to address the issue of equality of both, you may have to re-look at it and expand this threshold a bit so that you are able to cover a little more political parties. I know that in this country, we have over 51 registered political parties. The political parties that ended up having at least one Member of Parliament or one county Governor or a number of MCAs do not go beyond six or seven. That means that even if we were to review the percentage, we are not just opening up this to any other individual political part. For a political party to be able to marshal the numbers and get one, two or three Members of Parliament or 25 MCAs, that means that that is already a serious political entity. We may need to ask ourselves whether or not they deserve to be funded. It is important to look at the Bill. We are not just talking about supporting all political parties equally. There should be a formula for dividing the political parties fund into some categories. The first category should be equally across the political parties whether that percentage is 5 or 15 percent, it is important to note and then the greater percentage would be distributed based on the strength and the numbers that the political parties got. I think that is something that is fairly important. The amendment ought to be expanded to include giving a legal basis on how coalitions are going to share their funds. I come from a political party that is in a coalition with another political party. The parties are the United Republican Party (URP) and The National Alliance (TNA), in the Jubilee Coalition. We had an agreement on how we would share resources on the basis of the fact that our presidential candidate was one, but under the TNA party. But that is only captured under the agreement between us and our coalition partners. I think that there is need for a legal basis for the same, so that it is not just left to the agreement of the coalition partners. The framework should be provided legally within the Political Parties Act. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I know that the Elections Act provides for the management and running of coalitions. This should be reflected also in the Political 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."
}