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{
    "id": 601164,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/601164/?format=api",
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    "content": "has been taken as a matter that only affects women. However, the law is very clear that it is two-thirds gender rule of either gender. The law is very clear; it means either gender. Secondly, in the context of the new Constitution, coming from a Parliament where women were very inadequately represented, given the demographic figures in this nation, given the role of women in the politics of this nation, particularly in the liberation struggle and the second liberation and given their role in social movements in our country, the framers of the previous Constitution realized that if women were to be only provided with openly in our competitive politics that elects persons to representative institutions. Previous practices, the structure of politics and experiences may still reproduce Parliaments as County Assemblies where the representation of women was not in consonant with their demographic numbers and their role in the economy and the political processes in this country. That is why under the present Constitution, there are affirmative action provisions that ensures women representations will be felt in representative institutions, the Senate, National Assembly and the County Assemblies. The spirit of our discussion in the IPU, expert team was to go beyond mere formative action provisions in the present Constitution and progressively make it possible for women to compete in openly in our politics within a framework that ensures that representation of women meets two criteria; one, the demographic trends in our nation. Secondly, the participatory and the actual activities and role of women in politics. In many jurisdictions, there are two ways of making sure that demographic trends are respected in terms of gender representation. The most appropriate jurisdiction or practices that would most approximate the solution we are looking for in Kenya is through proportional representation and party list. When we go to elections, we either adopt a proportion representation principle on its own, so that what people vote for in election are not individuals, but people vote for political parties. In which case if political party “a” gets 70 per cent of the vote and political party “b” gets 30 per cent of the vote, respectively; political party (a) will get 70 per cent seats in a representative institution be it the National Assembly, the Senate and County Assemblies and the other will get mutatis mutandi 30 per cent of the seats. Then the political parties are required to submit party lists which will obey the following rule: The party lists will be submitted so that if the first person on the list is a man, the second person is a woman. They will alternate like that until the party list is exhausted. If a party gets 70 per cent of the vote, that party will take 70 per cent from its party list and send them to that representative institution. That 70 per cent will represent 50-50 men and women; that is 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women. In the event that the demographic trends show that one gender is much higher than the other in terms of demography, for example, if women are 70 per cent and men are 30 per cent, the way I see demographic trends the world over, especially the developing countries, that could easily be the case. It could be. We must factor that in making the party list. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, these are debates that we had with the Committee of Experts from the IPU which are germane to the discussions that we will have to have because the present Constitution is a transition Constitution. If I remember well, the Constitution expects the current dispensation to be done away with and a long lasting 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."
}