By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, November 19 2011 at 22:30
Posted Saturday, November 19 2011 at 22:30
Parliament has missed the deadline for establishing the team that will choose the disciplinarian of the country’s political parties.
And the House does not appear to be in a hurry to ensure that the new Registrar of Political Parties is picked according to the law.
Instead, MPs are locked in a long-running tiff over the dysfunctional Justice and Legal Affairs Committee.
For the first time, the House Business Committee defied Speaker Kenneth Marende’s directive to resolve the imbroglio in the committee.
The Speaker had asked the House Business Committee to slot in two motions to open the door for the revival of the crucial committee, but coalition power politics reigned, and the motions did not make it to the floor of the House on Wednesday as ordered.
“This is a power game, and it does not matter how many motions you put here. We will end up following the Standing Orders, and we will end up where we are unless the issue is resolved,” said ODM Whip Jakoyo Midiwo. “If a motion found itself on the floor of the House, ODM, officially, will not participate because we do not believe it is within the law.”
According to the Deputy Leader of Government Business, Mr Amos Kimunya, the tiff over the committee is “more complex than it appears” and unless Parliament gets it right, it will continue in “the quagmire forever”.
“We need, in a quiet environment of the House Business Committee, to look at all these matters one last time and provide a comprehensive solution to the House,” said Mr Kimunya as he pushed for an out-of-House settlement of the matter that has dogged the committee for the last eight months.
The committee members revolted against their chair, Ababu Namwamba of ODM.
But then, the House failed to convene a meeting for the committee to pick a new chairman.
Eight members rejected Mr Namwamba and wrote to the Clerk requesting an election.
The remaining three committee members, including Mr Namwamba, resigned from the committee after ODM withdrew its members.
The rest of the committee argued that only the House can change the membership of the committee and that the parties lose their mandate of picking members as soon as the House ratifies their appointment.
Mr Midiwo said Mr Isaac Ruto (Chepalungu) was an “indisciplined party member” who had no business discussing the issue.
Mr Ruto sat on the committee and has publicly joined ranks with his PNU colleagues to push for its revival.
Standing orders
The Speaker had initially asked the leaders of PNU and ODM — President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga — to sort out the mess. Word is that the committee has also referred the matter to the principals.
“How do you resolve a matter that belongs to Parliament outside Parliament?” asked Mr Ruto, who insists that the Standing Orders are adequate to sort out the matter only that, he claims, the Speaker, his deputy and the Clerk, seem to lack the spine to make the changes.
The committee is needed to ensure the runaway indiscipline in political parties is sorted out. Narc-Kenya, ODM and Safina are some of the parties that want to expel some of their members for flouting party rules.
According to the Political Parties Act, the House should have picked the selection panel within 14 days of the law coming into force. The law came into effect on November 1, 2011.
The Office of the President is yet to submit the name of the chair of the selection panel for parliamentary approval. All the other parties have submitted their nominees.
The Law Society of Kenya has picked Mr Bernard Mbai and Ms Koki Muli; the Institute of Certified Public Accountants settled for Ms Patrick Mahonga Mutange and Ms Rosemary Kinanu Gituma; the Association of Professional Societies in East Africa has Ms Grace Kahome Mugambi Injene and Mr Felix Owaga Okatch.
PNU selected former MP Justin Muturi and Ms Pamela Tutui, while ODM has Mr Joseph Kiangoi Ombasa and Ms Mumbi Ng’aru.
The person who wins in numbers will have a say on who sits on the selection committee, hence the remote influence to determine the next Registrar of Political Parties.The final eight still have to be chosen, but ODM and PNU are still fighting over the sharing of the slots on the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee.
The HBC will meet on Tuesday to decide the fate of the committee and if the difficulty persists, the Speaker may just be forced to refer the matter to the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee. He has done this before.
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