Disentangling the gender rule’s Gordian knot

What you need to know:

  • So is there any less “painful” option?
  • Yes — have a computer do it, or even use a box and do a Charity Sweepstakes-type raffle-draw!

Debate has intensified recently over how the minimum-one-third-representation gender rule as required by the Constitution can be met.

Even with Parliament, with its (male) “tyranny-of-numbers” now trying to push through a Bill that would remove the August 27 deadline — which as is could trigger Parliament’s dissolution — the issue is likely to remain contentious.

In considering this attempt, several factors that current members must juggle should be appreciated.

One is the fact that only 15 women (about six per cent of all MPs) were elected on March 4, 2013, and the vast majority of the (male) MPs will want to defend their seats in 2017.

As such, political parties are unlikely to accept the recent suggestion of Legal Affairs committee chair Samuel Chepkonga that they reserve the required number of constituency nominations for women.

But even if they did, they would have to agree on which constituencies would be restricted to women-only, since without doing this, parties are likely to nominate women only in areas where they have no realistic chance of winning.

Others have suggested that a number of women-only seats be created. Among them is National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi, who proposed the scrapping of the current category of “women representatives” as well as all 12 nominated MPs (six of whom are now women) in favour of the required number of additional “affirmative action” seats in the Senate (25) and the National Assembly (100).

However, this would increase (yet again) the total number of elected officials that taxpayers must provide for: from 47 to 72 in the Senate, and from 349 to 390 in the National Assembly, a change that would itself require a costly referendum, while potentially prying open a Pandora’s box of more dangerous self-serving changes to the Constitution.

That fact points to another factor MPs must consider: The cost factor (according to the Institute of Economic Affairs, Sh21.1 million annually for each additional MP).

REDUCE NUMBER

When asked in Ipsos’ most recent survey (March-April) to state the most desired change in the Constitution, most frequently mentioned was “reduce the number of elected officials” (12 per cent).

Moreover, with fewer than half of these respondents (only 47 per cent) now saying they would vote for their current member if s/he stood again in 2017, MPs must tread carefully on this issue.

This is especially so since in this same survey, not even half of all respondents agreed that having more women in elected positions would improve the quality of politics and governance.

At the same time, the survey found that only 39 per cent of all respondents know about this gender requirement — and only 33 per cent of women — supposedly the main intended benefactors — thus raising the question just how deeply Kenyans are concerned about this issue at all.)

Another suggestion has been made by Dr Mutakha Kangu of Moi University, who suggests reducing the number of constituencies to 150, each choosing a man and woman, thus increasing the number of elected members by only 10. But permanently eliminating through amalgamation 140 of the current constituencies is not likely to go down well, (which ones should go?).

RANDOM PICKING

So is there any less “painful” option? Yes — have a computer do it, or even use a box and do a Charity Sweepstakes-type raffle-draw!

This would involve randomly picking the one-third (96) of all the current National Assembly and 15 Senate constituencies required. Then, for the 2017 election, political parties would be obliged to nominate women only for those contests.

Any grievances could be addressed by another provision: That in the subsequent election (2022), the random draw of the required constituencies would exclude those picked in 2017. And thus the process would continue in this manner in future elections, until all constituencies have “had their turn” at providing a woman representative.

In the meantime, there would be no extra cost to the suffering taxpayers since no new seats would have been created, while the public would have a more realistic chance to decide if the quality of public life is or is not tangibly enhanced by such increased female numbers.

Make any sense? Lawmakers and constitutional implementation time-clock keepers, over to you!

Wolf is a research analyst at Ipsos-Kenya. [email protected]