KENYA: The Centre for Multi-party Democracy (CMD) has stepped up lobbying of MPs to amend thePolitical Parties Act to allow more parties qualify for State funding.
TNA is among parties that meet the 5 per cent threshold on the number of MPs to qualify for State funding.
The centre also wants the law that demands each political party to have offices in at least 24 counties amended, to save smaller parties from deregistration threats.
If the current Act was to be administered to the letter, CMD chairman Omingo Magara says only ODM, TNA and URP, which meets the 5 per cent threshold in the number of MPs, qualify for funding.
“We have talked to the Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi who chairs the House Business Committee and he has agreed to support the amendments,” said Magara. Magara also revealed CMD was engaging the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal affairs as well as Attorney General Githu Muigai over the proposed amendment.
Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs chairman Samuel Chepkonga had earlier called for a foolproof inclusive criteria to contain the growing unease over the matter.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-funded Political Parties Collaborative Forum (PPCF) has already proposed the repeal of the clause that pegs funding on the presidential results. Instead, PPCF Chairman Benjamin Mwema says the criteria should be either proportionate ratio pegged on percentages or parliamentary representation to widen the scope of funding.
Most political parties did not field presidential candidates in the March 4 election, instead opting to join the two main coalitions CORD and Jubilee, whose presidential candidates were Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta, respectively.
Magara says it would be unkind for other political parties such as Wiper Democratic Movement, Ford-Kenya and New Ford-Kenya among others to miss out on the funding yet they have parliamentary representation.
“Our hope is that all MPs will support the amendments when it goes to the floor of the House,” added Magara.
Magara also noted that this financial year’s funding should be increased to Sh2.8 billion as stipulated in the Constitution. “Only Sh300 million has been allocated and we are meeting the Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u on Tuesday to discuss the allocation formula,” added Magara.
Multi-party gains
On recent threats by Ndung’u to deregister some political parties that do not operate offices in more than half of the counties, Magara argues that would be detrimental to multi-party gains since 1992.
The registrar had earlier revealed an internal audit by her office had established that only ODM, URP, Wiper and TNA out of 55 registered parties have satisfied the minimum requirements of the law.
The Political Parties Act 2011 provides, among other things, that a party is properly registered if it has an active office in at least half of the 47 counties. But only the four big parties above have offices in 24 or more counties. The Act requires political parties to submit to the registrar the addresses of their branch offices. Some political parties only become active during election time for purposes of fielding candidates to generate income from nomination fees.
But Magara has warned against deregistering political parties that fail the compliance test, noting it would be tantamount to eroding democracy.
“Deregistration will take us several steps back in the expansion of democracy. We should not re-engineer the defeat of struggle for multi-party democracy,” said Magara.
He said that CMD would engage the National Assemblyto have the “harmful provisions” in the Act amended.
“Political parties are just like humans in many aspects. For you to grow, you must crawl. It is the collective duty of democracy that small parties are assisted to get minimal funding and not to face total exclusion from the kitty. They should not also be deregistered just because of offices or low number of members,” added Magara.
Magara, however, noted it was upon some of the political parties to re-invent themselves in line with the requirements of the new order to help foster democracy.
By Stephen Makabila, The Standard
