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{
    "id": 636613,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/636613/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 390,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ochieng",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2955,
        "legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
        "slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
    },
    "content": "and look for people who want to belong to their parties so that we know where people belong. It is going to sanitise the way we do our politics and avoid doublespeak that is part of our politics. The Leader of the Majority Party is today trying to say that his “father”, KANU, is naked and that it is now a bad party and yet he admits that it was his “father”. We must have people belonging where they want. If you want to belong to ODM, belong there and if you want to join Jubilee, then belong there. We must have a framework where parties register members. In the last few months, we have been treated to a very spectacular debate by the Jubilee where some Members from the United Republican Party are saying that they were not consulted and that they do not want to belong to the new party. In this Bill, I will bring some amendments that if you are going to have parties merging, then there must be representative organs of those parties making decisions. We cannot have five party officials sitting down and saying we are merging. We must have, at least, the delegates sitting down and saying we agree to merge or not. It is important so that if you are going in a way to kill parties, then let Members of those parties have a say on which parties they want to relate to. In my opinion, parties must be guided by ideologies and policies that will move this country forward. We cannot have parties formed along tribal lines. I do not fear saying this because yesterday, I watched my President speaking in Rift Valley saying that they are in power until 2032. When the Deputy President rose to speak he said that all these small parties like United Democratic Front (UDF) and FORD (K) will be clamped down and we form a new party. If you read between the lines, they are saying that Kikuyu and Kalenjin are going to merge so that they are in power for all those years. We cannot do that. We must have parties selling policies not tribal inclinations. They should tell me as a Luo that if you join Jubilee, this is how we are going to run this country. You cannot be clamping down communities and saying that they must belong to a particular party. KANU was being accused recently during the by-election for going against the community’s wishes. KANU is a political party in this country and we must allow the Kalenjin to belong to KANU, UDF or ODM if they want. You cannot start spreading fear that if people do not go to a particular party, then the community loses power. Power is relayed by the people and not communities. We must learn to run parties based on ideas. Let someone join a party because they know that the party advocates for free health care and education. Let us not have parties that are meant to build and serve the egos of their leaders. It is not going to help this country. In this Bill, we propose that the IEBC sticks to the mandate of being credible, create systems and run elections. It should leave the duty of sorting out disputes arising from political party primaries to another body. They keep telling us that Article 87 of the Constitution allows us to solve disputes arising from nominations. We have a body established under the Political Parties Act called the “Political Parties Dispute Tribunal”. We want this body to be given the sole mandate of resolving disputes arising from nominations of political parties. The sole mandate of the tribunal is to sort out disputes between or among members of political parties. If a party does its nominations and a member feels aggrieved, that is purely a dispute between a member and his political party. That is why we want the IEBC to stop going into things that do not concern them. Let them leave the tribunal to sort out disputes arising from members. We are proposing in this Bill to expand the membership of that tribunal from four to seven so that it can be able to sit in more than one panel. I hope the IEBC will understand this. I hope that this Parliament will vote more money to this body so that in the coming elections, this tribunal can The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}