BREAK

Kenya will now have 356 MPs if proposals by a Parliamentary team discussing the revised draft constitution are adopted.

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitution Friday agreed to increase the number of constituencies to 290 and retain the current 12 nominated positions.

The 26-member committee also provided for a further 54 special seats, which will be reserved for women.

There will also be a Senate made up of 54 members, a third of whom must be women. The Senators will meet only four times a year to discuss regional matters but will not be involved in law-making.

The team also agreed on a two-tier government: national and regional and provided for 18 regional governments.

The MPs had on Wednesday debated the emotive chapter on the executive well into the night and came up with a pure presidential system of government.

Under the model, the president will be both head of state and government and will be checked by parliament and an independent judiciary.

However, the MPs were unable to agree on the mode of devolution, whether political or financial. The former involves people governing themselves including decision making while the latter sees resources devolved to respective regions.

The committee took a break and will resume deliberations on Monday to iron out the contentious issues before handing over the draft to the Committee of Experts.

The CoE will, in turn, incorporate the changes before returning the document to Parliament for debate.