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{
    "id": 566540,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/566540/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 264,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me the chance to support this amendment. This amendment is very important in terms of our democracy as a country. It is going to help us grow the democratic space in this country. It has been said that we have many political parties in this country. After the last general election, only three parties managed to get national funding despite the fact that we are in a coalition. You are aware that under the CORD Coalition, we have key coalition partners like Wiper Democratic Movement and FORD (K). If you look at those parties, you will be surprised that they never managed to achieve the threshold for funding. I want to give an example of my party, the Wiper. It has five senators, four governors, 122 MCAs, 20 MPs and six women representatives. We missed the threshold by only about 0.05 per cent. As we are talking, were it not for the goodwill of the other coalition partners, more so ODM, which is the main party, today Wiper would be having no funds at all to conduct party matters. It is important that this amendment goes through, so that those parties which have some substantial representation in this House, the Senate or in the county assemblies, get funding. I want to support this because it is going to be very important for this country. Even as I support this, I will also be proposing amendments as a matter of the way forward. The way forward for this country is going to be coalition governments. We need to come up with a provision in law to take care of coalitions. We need laws to guide coalitions. As you are aware, in our coalition, we have a memorandum of understanding. I would wish to see a situation where whatever happens within the coalition is in law. I see a situation where we will have presidential and deputy presidential candidates running on one ticket. So, it becomes very difficult to isolate how many votes were given to the President and how many came through the fact that the Deputy President also campaigned. With this arrangement, I think that it is important."
}