Mudavadi, Ruto and Uhuru may lose seats

Nearly half members of Parliament, including six presidential aspirants and at least 20 Cabinet ministers, might have to give up their seats in the House this week.

Those who have left their parties must formally join the new ones by Thursday, October 4. That, according to the law, is three months before nominations which are to be held on January 3.

If a member notifies the Registrar of Political Parties that he or she has changed party allegiance, they are obliged to resign their seats.

To avoid a crisis, Chepalungu MP Isaac Rutto, has published a Bill to amend the Elections Act to extend the deadline for moving parties.

Nearly 100 MPs have moved either to The National Alliance (TNA), United Democratic Front (UDF), the United Republican Party (URP) or smaller parties which are popular in their counties. (READ: State of politics)

MPs amended the law in March but overlooked the defection clause, Section 34 (8) of the Elections Act which requires an aspirant to be a member of a political party for three months before the deadline of submission of party lists to the Registrar of Political Parties (RPP).

The IEBC has set January 4, 2013, as the date by which all political parties must submit party membership lists. The nominations for various positions are supposed to be completed by January 18, 2013.

The amended Section 28 of the Elections Act, 2011, requires registered political parties to submit party membership lists to the registrar at least two months before the elections, that is January 4, 2013.

In his Bill published on Friday and expected in the House on Wednesday morning, Mr Rutto wants the three months requirement dropped, allowing MPs to join new parties in January.

He warns that unless the section is amended, many MPs and councillors will have to resign from their seats, paralysing the government.

“Considering the large number of legislators and councillors that may be affected, this provision, left unamended is likely to distort if not altogether paralyse the work of these key institutions of governance,” he says.

Mr Rutto argues that as it stands, in spite of the amendments to Section 28 of the Elections Act which requires party membership to be submitted two months before the elections, the law requires all aspirants eyeing seats in the elections to join their preferred parties not later than this Thursday.

“This would mean that in the case of an MP or a member of local authority, he or she would need to resign from Parliament or the local authority on or before October 4, 2012. This would be so, despite the fact that the term of the current Parliament runs up to January 14, 2013,” he argues.

In March, MPs amended Sections 27 and 28 of the Elections Act through the Statute Law Miscellaneous (Amendment) Bill to reduce the period of submission of party nominations rules and party membership lists.

In Section 27, they reduced the submission of party nominations rules from six months to the election date to three. In Section 28, they reduced the period for submission of party membership from three to two months from the election date.

Even though they have declared their new political parties, presidential aspirants Uhuru Kenyatta (TNA), Musalia Mudavadi (UDF), William Ruto (URP), Peter Kenneth (Kenya National Congress), Mutava Musyimi (TNA) and Cyrus Jirongo (Federal Party of Kenya) are yet to formally resign from their former parties.