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{
    "id": 945159,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/945159/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 227,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13322,
        "legal_name": "John Kiarie Waweru",
        "slug": "john-kiarie-waweru"
    },
    "content": "sore one. I congratulate the Committee under the able leadership of the Chairman, Hon. Kioni, for the work they have done in seeking to remedy this very sore issue that has been one of the problems this Parliament has not been able to deal with accordingly. The Committee has burnt the midnight oil. They have gone out there and sought as much consultations as possible. I believe they have brought to us good amendments. I stand to support it with two reservations, which I will get to. This proposal is not an issue of gender. It is, in fact, an issue of representation. We know there are principles that speak to representation. One such principle is the principle of ensuring that no one is left behind. This is one of the mischiefs that this proposal seeks to remedy. In the history of agitation, we know there was a time when Kenyans were agitating that there shall be no taxation without representation. I have to speak to this House and say that the matter of representation in itself is not an event. It is a progress. When you think about it, even the representation of Kenyans in this House has been progressive and long coming to get to where we are. We started without any representation in this House. We ended up with the few people representing us through the Legislative Council (LEGCO) and eventually we can proudly say that every Member of this House today represents Kenyan interests. I would like to put it clearly that even as we pursue the issue of equity, it is not a gender issue. It is an issue of representation - the representation of our women, men, youth, PWDs, minority and marginalised groups and all Kenyans to find their place in the table where decisions are made. On the issue of gender, a lot has been said and even examples given of countries that are within our region of Sub-Saharan Africa. One example that everyone keeps repeating is the issue of representation of women in Rwandan Parliament. We have to understand that every country has its history. How women ended up being a majority in the Rwandan Parliament is not a journey we would like to walk as Kenya. We know the atrocities that led to fewer men representing people in Rwanda. It is not a journey we would want to go through. For Kenya, I must say we are making good progress. This progressive incremental growth in representation of women will eventually help us achieve a two-thirds gender representation in this House. That is my dream. My two reservations to this proposal are on the amendment to the Elections Act, where this Bill is proposing that each political party ensures that, at least, one-third of its candidates for nomination are of either gender. This is an amazing proposal. However, as people say, the situation on the ground is different. To do this, we would require mechanisms that we do not have. This is practically impractical. How are we going to define the constituencies where nominations of a certain gender are going to be assured and nominations of another gender are going to be restricted? Even as we seek to heal some mischief, we should not introduce another mischief in our laws. When you think about it, if you compel political parties to nominate a third of either gender, the practicability of it on the ground might be very difficult. There is still an opportunity as we work on this Bill, especially when we get to the Committee of the whole House, for amendments to be made on this proposal. My other reservation is on the Election Campaign Financing Act. We have special interest groups defined here and one of those is women. I come from a constituency where I have lost to a woman. I also come from a constituency where I have won an election against women. When we define special interest groups and one of them is women, and we go into the business of assisting one gender against the other, we will end up creating an inequality while trying to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}