Smaller parties in Kenya push to be funded by the State

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A past parliamentary sitting. A Bill pushing for the funding of small political parties is awaiting presidential assent. [PHOTO: FILE/STANADRD]

The quest by “small’’ political parties to access state funding is inching closer to reality amid calls for higher allocations to the kitty.

The parties are crying foul over recent media reports on proposals recently made by Parliament that may, ironically, block a number of them from accessing the fund, if adapted.

There has been confusion over at least two separate Bills fronted by Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa and Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale to determine the criteria to be used in deciding which parties qualify for the fund.

The Political Parties (Amendment) Bill sponsored by Wamalwa pegs a party’s acess to the fund to having at least five MPs or three Senators or 25 MCAs in a preceding election. The Bill has already sailed through the Second and Third Reading in the National Assembly and is currently before the Senate.

The Wamalwa Bill differs from another proposal by Khalwale that requires a party to have up to 20 MPs, three senators, three governors and 40 MCAs to acess the fund.

The second proposal is believed to have arisen from changes proposed by a mediation committee comprising members of the National Assembly and Senate. The Khalwale Bill had initially suggested that a party that has one governor or one senator, two MPs or 20 MCAs should be eligible for the fund.

The push to have the fringe parties benefit from the fund also found its way to the courts where an appeal is pending following a ruling by High Court Judge David Majanja in 2014.

Lower threshold

Majanja’s ruling upheld provisions of Article 25 of the Political Parties Act which bars parties that fail to get five per cent of the total votes cast from accessing the fund.

Under President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, only The National Alliance party (TNA), the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the United Republican Party (URP), have benefited from the fund, receiving Sh89.3 million, Sh87.4 million and Sh28.2 million respectively. This allocation is made annually to the three parties which got a minimum of three million votes each in the 2013 General Election.

Although other parties like the Wiper Democratic Movement, United Democratic Front (UDF), Narc Kenya, Alliance Party of Kenya (APK), New Ford Kenya and Kenya National Congress (KNC) garnered a substantial number of votes, they fell short of the five per cent threshold and did not qualify to access the fund.

Small parties want the threshold set by the Political Parties Act to be lowered to two per cent, which may see more of them qualify for a share of the fund.

Should the proposal to have at least 20 MPs, three Senators, three Governors and 40 MCAs to access the fund be adapted, then Wiper would join the league of parties that benefit from the fund. The party has about 25 MPs, four governors, four senators, and more than a dozen MCAs.

Other parties that have representatives in both the National Assembly and Senate but would have fallen short of this mark include UDF, which has about 12 MPs, Ford Kenya with 10 MPs, Kanu and Alliance Party of Kenya (APK) which have six and five legislators respectively. Such parties would, however, benefit from the fund under Wamalwa’s proposal.

“We are not encouraging briefcase parties but rather acknowledging that there are other parties of national appeal that should qualify for the funding,” says Wamalwa.

Although the ‘bigger’ parties are getting the lion’s share of the fund, it has been argued that allocations to the fund still fall short of what the law provides. The Political Parties Act stipulates that the total funds provided should amount to 0.3 per cent of the national government annual revenue, which in 2013 was about Sh3 billion. The amount shared by the three parties was Sh205million.

Centre for Multi-party Democracy Executive Director Carey Onyango says currently, only three parties out of 61 are funded by the State.

“We have forgotten the main reason for introducing funding for political parties by the State. We are killing democracy by locking out dozens of these small parties by denying them access to the funds,” he says.

Flip side

But he too acknowledges the flip side to having more parties funded by the State. “We also don’t want individuals rushing to register parties to benefit from the fund,” he says.

Lawyer Charles Kanjama, who is representing the small parties in court, says the question of coalitions, with regards to the number of votes each party brings into the fold and whether this is factored when determining the threshold to access the fund, should also be addressed.

“Currently the votes cast refer to an individual party. Assuming we have several parties within a coalition whose votes cumulatively meet the threshold, what then happens?” he asks.

The smaller parties are also seeking an interpretation on how much the State should be contributing to the fund.

Kanjama says statistics show that the three major parties currently benefiting from the fund only got 60 per cent of the vote. He faults the major parties for not using the funds for the purposes prescribed by the Political Parties Act.