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{
    "id": 662976,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/662976/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 549,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sijeny",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13127,
        "legal_name": "Judith Achieng Sijeny",
        "slug": "judith-achieng-sijeny"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Bill. I beg to support it because it brings some clarity. It assists in the implementation of the Constitution in the two-thirds gender rule. That is why I am excited about it. It cannot be institutionalized as an institution as Parliament, but it should be nationalized. This is the song that everybody must sing everywhere; the two-thirds gender rule. In addition, it favours women. This is still a patriarchal society. Women are yet to fully participate in politics as men. Any time the gender rule is mentioned, many people think that women are being smuggled in through the back door. We are just saying; give everybody a chance. You never know. We are going to the elections; it may go the other way round. God willing, it is the men who will be fighting for the gender rule to be observed. We cannot ask God to adhere to that gender rule in families because He does as he pleases. However, it is a mile stone. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party has this rule. It is observed in the elections. That is why there are more women of the Labour Party in Parliament. Uganda and Tanzania adhere to it. Our friends in Rwanda are lucky. If they continue with the same trend, it is men who will be fighting for their space so that the gender rule is observed. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the other amendment which pleases me is the amendment to Section 5 which seeks to harmonize the time frames on the provision relating to provisional registration of a political party. This will enable Kenyans to know which political parties exist, their ideologies, values and principles so that by the time they subscribe to them, they fully understand what they are doing. This will help so that you do not just pick a political party as a rebound when you have lost the nomination in your political party. At the end of the day, you realise that you cannot associate yourself with that same political party because you do not believe in that ideology. The other good amendment which I fully support is on Section 11 on the principle of setting out different procedures by which political parties can merge. These mergers are important. It brings clarity and honesty so that the politicians can honour the MOUs, come out with clear-cut contracts that if you breach, you know what your next step is instead of some people being shortchanged. We have seen a lot of party indiscipline, especially in this Parliament. There are people who tend to resign, go publicly declaring that they are no longer in a political party that took them to Parliament yet they still enjoy the fruits of the members of that political party. When clarity is brought to the amendment in Section 14, then we shall know the way forward. There will be less indiscipline. In fact, there will be proper clear- cut ways of disciplining politicians who are not decided where they are; one leg is on this 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"
}