On 22 November 2018, the National Assembly faced a decisive vote on the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2018, as more MPs came out against the proposal tied to the two-thirds gender rule.
Tongaren MP Eseli Simiyu said the bill, sponsored by Majority Leader Aden Duale, would not solve the problem of underrepresentation of women in Parliament. Instead, he argued, it would simply enlarge the House without fixing the electoral system.
“While this is a good step in trying to fix the problem of having few women representatives in this House, it is a lazy way of going about it,” he said. “Let’s bite the bullet and make a proper legislation that will ensure the women are also represented here. Otherwise this is too lazy and won’t work.”
Simiyu said the country should rethink the way MPs are elected so that the 290 constituencies produce a gender-balanced House. He added that proportional representation could also help include persons with disabilities and young people without expanding Parliament beyond what he called a reasonable size.
Endebess MP Robert Pukose also raised concern over the cost of adding more representatives. He said Kenyans would bear the financial burden if the proposal went through.
“We need to consider the cost that Kenyans will incur to cater for this representation. It’s high time we considered the number of Kenyans who would be introduced to this House,” he said.
Some lawmakers told The Star at Parliament Buildings that they were unwilling to state their position publicly, saying they feared backlash from party leaders and voters. One MP said support for the principle could be read as backing a larger wage bill, while opposition could anger party leadership, leaving some legislators to wait for the vote.
The bill needed the support of 233 MPs, representing two-thirds of all members, to pass. If approved by the House and later assented to by the President, it would take effect after the 2022 General Election.
At the time, the National Assembly had 349 members and the Senate had 67. The National Assembly had 76 women in total: 23 elected MPs, 47 woman representatives and six nominated MPs. The Senate had 21 women, made up of 19 nominated and three elected members.
Duale defended the bill, saying the 12th Parliament had a duty to protect the Constitution by implementing a provision that had remained unfulfilled since 2010.
“We need to make a decision as a House to actualise the provision in the Constitution that has not been implemented since 2010,” he said.
Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa rejected the proposal, saying it did not set out a clear method for selecting women to meet the threshold. He argued that the plan would hand too much power to party leadership and shut out rural women from choosing their own representatives.
“I ask my fellow MPs to reject this bill. It doesn’t give an opportunity for the rural woman to choose who will represent them in Parliament. It instead grants political parties’ leadership powers to bring slay queens through nominations,” he said.
The debate came as lawmakers weighed whether to endorse or reject the measure, with the outcome expected the same day.
