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{
    "id": 470800,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/470800/?format=api",
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    "content": "Parties Act. However, when we invited the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC), they raised a lot of concerns with regard to this amendment. It is important for us to know what other institutions think. The CIC raised the issues that have been raised by the Members of this House who have opposed this amendment, in terms of the fact that we needed a Political Parties Act that would ensure that we have institutional parties that are not ethnic-based, individualistic or just regional. Article 91 (1) of our Constitution dictates or suggests that we should have political parties that are national in character. Therefore, we, as a House, need to be careful that we do not know what the threshold is, to the extent that we give room for ethnic political parties in this country. Therefore, we, as a House, have to ensure a balancing act, in terms of ensuring that the threshold is not too high. I seem to believe that the threshold of five per cent may be too high for the reach of most of the political parties. But it should not also be too low to allow any political party in this country to just find its way and be funded through resources from the taxpayers. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the CIC was largely opposed to this Bill on the basis of Article 91 (1). When we invited the Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD), they raised similar issues as those raised by the CIC. But then, before you dismiss a political party, that they did not gather enough numbers whether in the National Assembly, county assemblies and Governors positions--- For a party to perform well in an election, you have to spend a lot of resources. Therefore, most of the political parties that succeeded in the last general elections spent a lot of resources coming from people’s pockets, to ensure that they endeared themselves to Kenyans and got the number of votes that they got. Therefore, how do you nurture small parties to grow and ensure that they are able to succeed? I think that we may need to provide for a grace period. Even under our Constitution, we provided for the Equalization Fund that would last for a certain period – 20 years, for example – which is supposed to give an opportunity to ensure that we equalize counties in this country. Even for political parties, we need to provide for a transitional mechanism where we support even the smaller parties and give them a chance. Maybe over a period of five years or ten years, if a party does not perform or consistently grow and ensure that it has more Members of the National Assembly, Members of the County Assemblies and so on, then we should provide for mechanisms to pull them out of the support by the Political Parties Act. It is important that we give an opportunity to small parties that are still growing and nurture them. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, at the end of the day – and that is why we need to critically make the decisions as the Senate – there is logic and merit in ensuring that we have parties that are of national character and able to carry the ideals that are identified across this country. But more importantly, let us not lose the fact of the need to grow political parties and ensure that we have equality of votes. I support this amendment to the extent that we need to relook at that threshold, so that we do not lower it beyond a certain level; that you give even an ethnic political party an opportunity to be funded through taxpayers’ money. But we should not also raise it so 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."
}