Another push for referendum unveiled

Civil society organisations have started a campaign to amend the Constitution through popular vote.

The organisations, under the umbrella ‘The Green Amendment Campaign’,Thursday started to collect one million signatures from across the country in bid to amend the Constitution to realise the two-thirds gender requirement.

Parliament is behind schedule to meet the August 27 constitutional deadline.

The Green Amendment Campaign is the third referendum drive after Coalition for Reforms and Democracy’s Okoa Kenya Movement and the governor’s Pesa Mashinani initiative.

The representatives of the latest referendum drive yesterday expressed confidence that they will have met all requirements needed for a constitutional amendment within three weeks.

The campaign seeks the support of either of the two formulas suggested to meet the gender requirement. The first formula, dubbed formula 136, seeks to create 136 seats for women up from the current 47 while the second, called formula 94, seeks to create 94 seats from the current 47.

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Two formulas

“We want to approach the same people who overwhelmingly voted for the Constitution to put their voice in this campaign by endorsing it,” said Daisy Anday, the convener of the National Women’s Steering Committee (NWSC) during the campaign’s launch in Nairobi.

Both formulas seek to create 94 elective seats in the Senate. Men and women will each have 47 seats. Only six slots will be left to meet the requirement (through nomination) for people with disabilities, marginalised communities and special interest groups.

The campaign wants to fix the number of wards at 1,450 and do away with nominations in county assemblies.

Ndhiwa MP Agostino Neto from the Kenya Parliamentary Human Rights Association (Kephra) who was present at the launch of the campaign, said they do not support the bill sponsored by Samuel Chepkonga (Ainabkoi), which seeks to have the two thirds gender rule implemented “progressively”.

Although the Constitution allows Parliament to seek for an extension once for a period of one year, Neto said they cannot risk pushing the bill to next year as MPs will be busy with campaigns for 2017 elections.

“If we let the parliamentary process proceed the way it has done, it might not realise the enactment of a law. The option we have now is to come together as parliamentarians, civil society and the people of Kenya to collect one million votes, and it can be done in one month or less.”