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{
    "id": 567765,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/567765/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 210,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "The USA, what we call the quintessence of the modern-day democracy has very few political parties. One of them is the Democratic Party and the second one is the Republican Party. The United Kingdom has less than five political parties, namely, the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Scottish National Party (SNP). It is not automatic that the more political parties you have the more democracy you have. I think we are trying to address the wrong problem with the wrong solution. We need to look at the governance structures within political parties and the systems and procedures through which nominations are conducted. We need to look at the character of those holding office, whether we have room for all genders, for the youth and for persons with disabilities so that we cure the problem of democracy. Moving to the main issue in this Bill, I support the reduction of the threshold from five per cent. That is a noble idea. We need to get more political parties. However, if you look at the original intentions of the mother Act, which is the Political Parties Act, one of the intentions of that Act was to make sure that we can as much as possible, detribalise our political parties. If we have the provision that a party can qualify if it has 25 MCAs, we need to make it very clear that those 25 MCAs are not MCAs in one county. I will create a party that only fields candidates in Kitale and because I am from Kitale, I will get 25 MCAs and just because of that I will be able to get political funding. We want to bring parties together. I would like to ask my friend to borrow a leaf from what Jubilee is doing. Because of that same aspiration, we are bringing our parties together into one national political party named “Jubilee”. The reason for that is that going forward, we want to make sure that Kenyans either from Wajir, Lokichar, Kakamega, Vihiga or Mombasa can feel that they are part of a national political party. That is the aspiration of the people of this country. Let us not just proliferate and have very many small parties that will serve either regional, tribal or religious agenda. That goes against the provisions of the law. I would like to urge the Members, instead of disintegrating, let us form strong political institutions that will serve to unite this country."
}