The chairman of Commission on Revenue Allocation and a constitutional lawyer have proposed that the National Assembly nominates 76 women to meet the gender rule and later on reduce the number of constituencies to 150.
CRA Chairman Micah Cheserem said Parliament should use nomination of 76 women as a short-term measure to meet the gender rule and beat the deadline set out by the Constitution.
Similarly, former chairman of the Devolution Committee and constitutional lawyer Mutakha Kangu wants the number of constituencies reduced to 150 and number of wards reduced from 1,450 to 700 before the 2017 polls.
The two said this will not only reduce the expenses of taking care of elected members but will also grant women a 50-50 representation.
The Constitution of Kenya, 2010, Article 27 (8) provides for affirmative action where the State is required to take legislative and other measures to ensure that not more than two-thirds of the members of elective or appointive bodies are of the same gender.
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Article 81 further reiterates that the same rule should be applicable in elective public bodies.
“The Constitution has set five years since the promulgation of a new Constitution for Parliament to effect the gender rule. That deadline is approaching and by August 27, 2015, the present Parliament must meet that demand,” Mr Cheserem said.
“In order to beat the deadline, we propose that the National Assembly nominates 76 women the same way the county assemblies did during the 2013 election. But we can sit and change the Constitution to revise the number downwards in readiness for the 2017 elections.”
The National Assembly has 349 representatives comprising of 290 elected members from the constituencies, 47 women elected from the counties and 12 nominated representatives. He said of the 349 elected members, only 14 were elected women MPs, 47 were elected as Woman Representatives while five women were nominated bringing to the number of women MPs to 66.
“If you subtract 66 (no of women in NA) from 349 (MPs), you arrive at 283 male MPs, which is supposed to be the two-thirds number we use to arrive at the gender rule. Half of 283 male MPs is 142. This is the number of women we need in order to meet the gender rule,” he explained.
“Since we need 142 women MPs, then we need to nominate 76 in addition to the 66 women MPs we have today.”
However, it will not be possible for Kenyans to continue sustaining the wage bill for the 425 MPs should Parliament go ahead and nominate the 76 women.
“Our biggest worry is the number of MCAs. They are too many. The number should be reduced to at least four wards per constituency,” he said.
The county assemblies have 1,450 elected members and 777 nominated members, mainly women, bringing the total to 2,227.
“We should consider decreasing the members of the National Assembly to 200 or 150 as suggested by Kangu and county assemblies to below 1,000,” said Cheserem.
Mr Kangu concurred with Cheserem saying the sooner Parliament reduced the number of constituencies from the 290 to 150, the better for the country.
“In my proposal, the Constitution should be changed to reduce the number of constituencies to 150, which will then elect two MPs from either gender per constituency bringing the number of women at par with that of men (150 men, 150 women bringing the total to 300MPs),” Kangu explained.
“The wards should also be reduced to at least four per constituency in order to reduce the wage bill.”
Kangu said the current election and nomination of women have made the political parties very powerful and should be done away with.
But some of the MPs have differed on the proposal to reduce the number of elective seats to from 290 to 150 to pave way for more women MPs.
Benjamin Washiali (Mumias East) and Ayub Savula (Lugari) have supported the proposal to reduce the number of constituencies but maintained that the proposal should consider population of each constituency.
“I support the proposal to reduce the number of constituencies as long as the area of representation is equated. We do not need cases where one constituency has a population of 300,000 and the other with only 45,000 people,” said Mr Washiali.
Mr Savula termed the proposal as perfect and will help in reducing the Government wage bill and also realise the two thirds gender rule.
“The proposal is perfect, it will help the country to achieve gender balance and reduce the burden on tax payers,” said Savula.
However, Navakholo MP Emmanuel Wangwe dismissed any efforts to reduce the number of constituencies saying some parts of the country will be marginalised.
He said proper methods should be used to achieve the two-thirds gender rule rather than reducing the number of constituencies in the country.
