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written by Stephen Wanyama , July 25, 2007

This is a right pickle is it not? With alliances still fluid, and much of its credit wasted, the government knows it cannot get the 145 votes in Parliament to change the constitution, so it wants to do the sneaky and pass this on the sly. I suppose it is clear to most MPs, even the pro-government ones that this will not go through as a regular Bill at all, still Amos will not be denied the regular egg, on his face.

The question is whether a fractured opposition can turn this to their benefit. As disorganised as they ar, all the gerrymandering will be done by ECK, and they will be left whining after the fact. Where are boundaries drawn, and will it result in more Raila MPs or more Kibaki MPs? If they are asleep on their watch, the Central Kenya party could end up controlling Kenyan politics for ever.

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written by Tim Norwood , July 25, 2007

Kibaki needn't worry too much, there's every chance that he can buy the support of the MPs with another GNU after the election. Howeve, we do urgently need to revisit some of the electoral boundaries, maybe one of the MPs will also propose reducing their rewards for service to the mwananchi? Surely, even the greediest of all of them can see that having 330 or so MPs on these fat cat salaries and benefits is unsustainable.

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written by aeichener , July 27, 2007

If I may disrupt the polyphone soliloquy for a moment:

Firstly, while it is understandable and reasonable that constituencies should not be too unequal as to numbers of constituents, I wonder whether the proposed suggestion is well thought out. One problem is the "gerrymandering" aspect that was addressed above. And would it not be better if a large constituency had two MPs, instead of being split into two separate parts?

But anyhow, I wonder whether the whole direction is right. Wouldn't Kenya be better served with a slimmer and cheaper parliament? Instead of ever more and more fat cats, pushing for their place at an ever more and richer filled Common Trough? Is Kenya at all in a position to sustain and properly benefit from such a large assembly?

Secondly, the cabinet's suggestion of reserving an additional 50 seats for female candidates has been brought up and discussed in a parallel thread. As favourable and decent as the idea appears, I see one of its potential problems in a lack of democratic legitimacy, if these candidates are to be "nominated" only and not elected.

A possible solution would be two parallel lists on the same ballot:
On the first, voters elect their constituency candidate as before (of either gender), and on the second, men and women alike would elect their "reserved female MP" from a list of female candidates. That would be far more democratic.

Alexander

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written by emmo opoti , July 27, 2007

If we could get back to it then. The opposition is not opposed to the attempt to increase the number of seats, it merely desires that it be in charge of the implementation.

For me, anything less than a Proportional Representation system will still be undemocratic, especially as the big tribes mercilessly lord it over the smaller ones. Perhaps it is CDF amounts that need to be increased to better reflect constituency population sizes, or hardship. With CDF a fact on the ground, no constituency should feel left out by Nairobi, even with the sleepiest MP.
It is also important that Kenyans do not forget that their local governments are also very significant, perhaps more so than the farting, sleeping Mbunge in Nairobi. A well run Nairobi, even with only 8 MPs will not need more attention in Parliament.