Anxiety over new party law

By David Ohito

Anxiety has hit political parties as they come to terms with the requirement to comply with the new Political Parties Act. There is likely to be showdowns and leadership wrangles as parties hold elections to comply with the stringent requirements. Time is running out for them to comply.

The law, signed by President Kibaki last month, comes into effect on Tuesday, setting the stop watch ticking for parties to put their houses in order or dissolve.

The Act, after the commencement date on Tuesday, will give all parties a grace period of 180 days until December 31 when the axe will fall.

The political parties, which went through a bruising election six months ago, will have to return to their boardrooms to draw a strategy of compliance.

The pressure is exerted by the fact that Members of Parliament whose parties may fail to comply and get deregistered could lose their seats.

This will mean MPs will be on the backs of their party bosses and executive committee to adopt the compliance measures.

Neither President Kibaki’s PNU, Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s ODM nor Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka’s ODM-Kenya has come close to meeting the rules laid out in the Act.

All parties will have to hold fresh elections of national officials to comply with a new rule that makes it mandatory to have national representation of officials.

Another clause also makes it mandatory to have at least one third of national officials drawn from either gender, a requirement that will send the male-dominated political parties into motion to correct the anomaly.

It will be terse time for parties, especially the major ones that are aligning themselves for the 2012 succession General Election battle after President Kibaki leaves office.

Main parties said on Thursday they are ready to take the steps required to comply with the Act.

The independence party, Kanu, whose national officials have since fallen out, will have to return to the table to make the party compliant.

Officials from the Rift Valley have risen up since the elections against their chairman Uhuru Kenyatta whom they accuse of leading the party into PNU without their consent.

Ford-Kenya has also been in turmoil with tugs of war between those backing chairman Musikari Kombo and others opposing his tenure. Other parties where controversies loom as the alignment comes up are PNU, and DP.

With the new rules, the Grand Coalition between PNU and ODM, which was formalised under the National Accord, may have to be registered under the Political Parties Act. The Act states that all coalition arrangements must be registered with the registrar who will have an office at the ECK.

The Act is seen as a guillotine to squeeze briefcase parties out of operation and end the pedestrian conduct of some parties that are active only during elections.

It will also reign in party-hopping MPs who will now have to be careful because they could be kicked out of their parties and lose their seats if they start gravitating towards another.

The country has about 300 registered political parties, 140 of which plunged into the primaries last year and 117 went into the election fielding candidates for either presidential, parliamentary or civic seats. Only 22 parties have their members in the Tenth Parliament.

ODM legal adviser James Orengo, who is also the Minister for Lands said: “We anticipated the Act and we are putting our house in order.”

Coalition agreement

He said ODM and PNU are allowed to operate as a coalition in Parliament according to agreements reached under the National Accord.

ODM-Kenya’s Mutula Kilonzo warned the MPs to use the 180 days to comply or face the harsh law and risk losing their parliamentary seats.

Mutula said ODM-Kenya would register its coalition pact with the registrar and comply with the new law.

“We must beat the deadline within 180 days or risk losing seats. I expect MPs to comply because they know the consequences,” Mutula said, on telephone, from Oslo, Norway where he is on official duty.

Safina Party leader Paul Muite said: “Safina as of now has no instrument of coalition agreement with PNU. The new law requires the party to enter into one or our MPs would risk losing their seats,” Muite said.

Kombo said his party was not threatened at all with the new law. “Ford-Kenya was at the forefront of fighting for the law. We have a coalition agreement between us and PNU, all we need is to have it formally registered as we start compliance measures,” he said.

Narc-Kenya holds a two-day retreat this weekend in Naivasha to start the process of compliance with the new Act.

The party’s chairperson Martha Karua said: “This is a strategy meeting, we want to go over our manifesto, constitution and party structure among other things.”

PNU is holding a strategy meeting in Nairobi today to discuss ways of complying with the Act, according to chairman Jasper Nyamboga.

PNU is cornered over its loose pacts with various parties affiliated to it. Its affiliates include ODM-Kenya, Kanu, Narc-Kenya, Ford-Kenya, Ford-People, Safina, and New Ford-Kenya, most which are eager to stand on their own in preparation for the next General Election.

ODM, which has political agreements with Charity Ngilu’s Narc, Harun Mwau’s Pick, UDM and PDP, similarly has to deposit agreements with the registrar for these affiliations or set them free.

The Minister for Finance will prepare annual allocations to the Political Parties Funds to be administered by the registrar.

Finance Minister Amos Kimunya did not factor budgetary allocation in his speech to fund political parties, which means financing may start next year.

Fifteen per cent of the money will be distributed equally to all political parties that qualify, while 80 per cent will be disbursed proportionately by reference to the number of votes secured by each political party in civic, parliamentary and civic elections.

— Additional reporting by Joseph Murimi