How MPs use delay tactics to frustrate Bills

Filibustering has enjoyed relative access owing to the strict timelines to which parliamentarians must adhere. [Courtesy]

Lawmakers worldwide know when they cannot win a debate. While voting by acclamation gives an opening to the louder bunch – sometimes the minority – to win a vote in Parliament, the numbers game in voting by division means that the majority will always win.

Members of Parliament know as much and have, for ages, devised means aimed at cheating the system. Perhaps the most preferred method is filibustering, a practice that involves delaying a vote on proposed pieces of legislation.

Filibustering has enjoyed relative access owing to the strict timelines to which parliamentarians must adhere.

Its roots can be traced back to the year 60 BC in Ancient Rome. Cato the Younger, a Roman senator, would make long speeches that ran into the night to block proposals by Julius Caesar, then emperor. The Roman Senate had a rule requiring all business to conclude by dusk, curtailing a night vote on whatever legislation.

More than 2,000 years later, MPs still turn to similar tactics to prevent changes with which they don’t agree but lack the numbers to block them through a vote.

It was, arguably, the case when the National Assembly debated the Political Parties (Amendment) Bill in special sittings last week. Proponents of the changes had everything planned out and would have concluded the matter by Wednesday last week.

But the raft of amendments proposed by its opponents made a vote on the Bill impractical, despite calls by Minority Leader John Mbadi to have the amendments harmonised and the Bill move to the next stage later in the day.

The similarity in some of the amendments indicates that they were, possibly, meant to frustrate the Bill’s passing. At least this is what supporters of the Bill believe the intention of the proposed amendments to be.

The Azimio Bill, by design, has timelines within which it must be passed to be beneficial to its proponents.

"...the coalition political party shall submit the coalition agreement at least six months before a general election," reads a proposed amendment to Section 10 of the Political Parties Act, 2011.

Parliament Buildings, Nairobi. May 7, 2021. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Proponents of the Bill, led by President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga, plan to use it to create the Azimio la Umoja movement. They, therefore, have until February 9 to ensure the Bill becomes law.

The Bill must go through Senate for concurrence. A repeat of the events at the National Assembly could stall it.

The Bill comes up for debate today and could move to the third reading stage if it is not stalled again. To prevent a repeat of last week's events, the National Assembly will sit until the debate on the Bill is concluded, meaning that MPs could be spending tonight in Parliament.

"...if need be, the House may hold (an) evening sitting on the prescribed date, for purposes of concluding any business scheduled for consideration herein," reads a notice by Speaker Justin Muturi on today's sitting.

Mbadi and other pro-handshake MPs had chided their rivals for lacking the numbers they boasted to have, which would have seen them defeat the Bill in a vote, accusing them of employing delay tactics.

The roles were reversed last year in the Senate. In the thick of the polarising debate over the revenue-sharing formula, the pro-handshake side, realising they lacked numbers to support a State-backed formula proposed by the Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA), called for adjournments to prevent a vote.

Speaker Ken Lusaka, like National Assembly Deputy Speaker Moses Cheboi, had been accused of aiding and abetting the filibuster by adjourning sittings "unprocedurally".

Their plan worked, stalling the vote eight times, denying victory to senators who identified as Team Kenya. The pro-handshake side called themselves One Man, One Vote, One Shilling. They would eventually strike a compromise with a formula proposed by Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja.

The Senate standoff was heated, but it came nowhere close to the chaotic debate over the Security Laws (Amendment) Bill in the National Assembly that was passed shambolically in 2014.

In their bid to block the changes, opposition MPs brought chaos in Parliament. That worked until Speaker Muturi bit the bullet to preside over a disorderly session.

Previous Parliaments offered more lessons on filibustering. In the 1990s, for instance, the term tortoise voting was synonymous with MPs who voted slowly so that they may frustrate government-sponsored votes.

Back then, there was no duration within which lawmakers were required to cast their ballot. MPs, therefore, would spend as much time voting, a move aimed at dragging the vote late into the night, frustrating many who opted to leave the chamber.?