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"id": 50293,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/50293/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Kamar",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Environment and Mineral Resources",
"speaker": {
"id": 33,
"legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
"slug": "margaret-kamar"
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"content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to contribute to this Bill. In the few remaining minutes of my time, I will just concentrate on the functions of the Commission. I want to, first, congratulate the Minister for moving very fast to bring this Bill to us. If you look at the functions of the Commission, you will appreciate that there are issues which needed to have been tackled yesterday. We need this body to be formed immediately. We need to name the new commissioners immediately, so that we are able to function as a country. We want the things of the past to be bygones. We want to forget what happened in 2007. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to touch on a few of the functions of the Commission. On Part II â Administration, Clause 4(g) in particular is the one which concerns me a lot. We are almost getting too late to provide civic and voter education. Elections will be held next year, and there is a lot that is required to be understood by the population in this country. On the issue of civic and voter education, we know that the number of candidates who are going to be voted for this time round is going to be bigger than usual. We need the Commission to be out there now and educate the people on how they are going to vote, and what voting means to them and future generations. I am a bit worried due to the fact that it is unclear what the womenâs vote is going to be. Considering the number of Members of Parliament we are going to have, more than 350, it means that the one-third of women that we are looking for, which is stipulated in the Constitution, is about 116 Members of Parliament. So, if they will claim 116 seats, we need to start talking to women. The problem currently is that we hear people saying at baraza or public gatherings that women have got their 47 seats. That is not true. The number of seats for women is 116 seats. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to start civic education and make sure that women know that only 47 seats are being given to them, but they must start fighting for the balance of over 60 seats. There is need to have urgent civic education. So, the sooner we form this Commission, the better. I can tell you that if we do not have 116 seats for women in the Parliament of 2012, this country will be in a crisis, because as the women of this country, we will not allow anybody to violate the Constitution. The Constitution is supreme and we must obey it. A total of 116 women must come to this House at that time. Another very important aspect is the issue of disputes over nominations. We have had a lot of scandalous ways in which nominations have been handled. This Commission is very important, and we need to form it to come and deal with those issues. The other issue we must deal with is that of the code of conduct for candidates and parties. Some political parties have become rogue parties. They do not obey the Registrar of Political Parties. So, we need a body which is independent and empowered to actually deal with such political parties. We need to have a level playing ground. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, one of the functions of this Commission, as we have been told, will be the regulation of the amount of money to be spent by a candidate during the campaign period. We need this team so that it can formulate those regulations and bring them to the House, so that we can pass them. Mr. Minister, even in your Ministry, you should be able to deal with the issue of regulations and come up with ways in which we can regulate the amount of money to be spent on election campaigns. Currently, you cannot tell whether people vote for candidates or for money. So, this Commission must be in place as soon as possible. The last issue I would like to touch on is the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Fund. I want to commend the Minister for the way it has been articulated, and add that he must ensure that nobody can use the funding of this Commission as a bait. That is what the former electoral commission suffered in 2007. They did not know whether they were an independent commission or they were working for Government, and which Government they were working for, since our own Government had been dissolved and we had gone into elections. Therefore, we need to ensure that the proposed Commission performs during elections, be they national elections, referenda or county elections. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}