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{
    "id": 567799,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/567799/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 244,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ganya",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 18,
        "legal_name": "Francis Chachu Ganya",
        "slug": "francis-ganya"
    },
    "content": "Yes, I will. Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. At the outset, I strongly oppose this Bill. This is about institutionalising national political parties in our country. We need national political parties as institutions with character, values, ideologies and policies. We need cohesive parties that will bring Kenyans together. This Bill is trying to change the number of votes garnered by a political party in any general election from 5 per cent to 2 per cent for the party to qualify for funding. In the last general elections, roughly 10 million voters voted in our country. So, by this amendment, you will just need 200,000 voters to vote for your party so that it can access political parties funding. What that means is that all the major communities in Kenya can form their own ethnic-based parties, balkanise this country and still have access to national funding. We cannot allow that. Modern democracies all over the world have formed strong parties which bring the nations and communities together. They are known for their values, policies and ideologies. Even in the USA, you can form parties, but for you to access State funding, you must reach a certain threshold of votes during any general election. In 1992, I was a first-year student in the US and Ross Perot, through independent party, managed to get enough votes when he stood against Clinton and was able to access funding for five years. Later on, he could not garner enough votes to meet the threshold and, because of that he could not continue accessing State funding. Let political parties compete nationally, garner votes to reach the threshold of 5 per cent and access State funding. As a nation, we cannot fund parties from all corners of this country which stand for nothing, but are just there to get votes from their own communities because they have the numbers and use that to access State funding. That is not right. It will not support this country or take it any further. We need parties that will bring Kenyans together. We need parties like the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) which is truly a national party. I do not think The National Alliance (TNA) and United Republican Party (URP) are national parties at the moment. Those are regional parties to be honest, if you look at the base from where they have their members in this House."
}