Only President Uhuru Kenyatta's TNA, Deputy President William Ruto's URP and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga's ODM have qualified for a share of the Sh205 million set aside by the Treasury for distribution to political parties.
Some 56 registered political parties will not get a cent from the Political Parties Fund for the five years until the next general election. There are 59 duly registered political parties in the country according to records held by both the Registrar of Political Parties and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
The registrar's tabulations are based on the computation of the March 4 general election results submitted by the IEBC. “As we speak now, only three parties have qualified to receive the funds. But this is not final. Discussions are still on between my office and the registered political parties. Disbursement of the funds will be done within the confines of the law,” Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u said.
Article 25 (2) of the Political Parties Act stipulates that a political party shall not be entitled to receive funding if “the party does not secure at least five per cent of the total number of votes at the preceding general elections”.
According to the IEBC, 72,868,233 votes were cast in the March elections. This was the total for president, governor, senator, women's representative, MP and ward representative.
For a party to qualify for the funding, it must have received five per cent of the 72,868,233 total votes, which translates to a minimum of 3.4 million. Parties locked out include former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka's Wiper Democratic Movement, Martha Karua's Narc Kenya, Musalia Mudavadi’s UDF and Peter Kenneth’s Kenya National Congress.
Others are Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula's Ford Kenya, Eugene Wamalwa's New Ford Kenya, Mwangi Kiunjuri's GNU, Harun Mwau's PICK and Kalembe Ndile's Tip Tip. Small parties are now up in arms over the criteria used in the allocation of party funds.
The chairman of the Political Parties Collaborative Forum Col Benjamin Mwema said the law should be amended and a new formula for sharing out the cash formulated to ensure smaller parties benefit from the fund.
“If we follow the five per cent criteria, we will take this country back to the dark days of bi-party politics, watering down the efforts we have put in for many years to achieve multi-party,” said Mwema.
Some parties have also raised issue with the results released by IEBC, saying "flawed tabulation” cannot be used as the basis for sharing the money. They said there are also several election petitions pending in the courts and the funds cannot be shared out until all the cases are concluded.
The parties are pushing for the release of Sh2.4 billion, which they say is what Treasury should have set aside by law. Section 24 (1) (a) of the Political Parties Act provides that parties should each financial year receive at least 0.3 per cent of the revenue collected by the national government.
This means that Treasury was supposed to give out 0.3 per cent of the Sh1.027 trillion 2013-14 revenue estimates of the national government.
The small parties have raised their grievances with the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
The small parties have raised their grievances with the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
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