The End of an Epoch!

 The parliamentarians are at it again, they have finally woken up from their deep slumber, and discovered that there is no future after a failed attempt at the presidential bid. Initially most parliamentarians thought the clause in the constitution and the Elections Act of 2011, barring presidential aspirants from running from other public office was part of a political gimmick, as a result of this astounding revelation, they have come up in arms to try and bring in three amendments to the Elections Act.

 The first amendment involves the issue of by-elections for the constituencies that have lost their representatives, the second involves the issue of reduction of academic qualification for election candidates, and lastly the most nefarious is sneaking in a clause in the Election act to reduce the unyielding position against presidential and their deputies from vying for other elective position.

The issue of by-elections. 

With the entry into force of the Elections Act, major legislation dealing with elections were repealed in toto. The effect of this is that the there are no proper guidelines which are in place to allow the speaker to declare the seats vacant because parliament in its indolent, lethargic and slothful operations have not been able to enact the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Bill 2012, which is supposed to spell out verbatim how the by elections will be carried out. Due to this ineptitude the speaker has no authority to per se to order such a writ of vacant seats.

 

In that light parliamentarians have in their irrationality, come up with suspicious amendments to the act to allow, by elections to be carried out citing the right of the constituents to representation, however the members of the august house should not act self righteous right now because they wasted most of the time in parliament, debating inconsequential and trivial matters and being the members we know have come in the dying hours to distort the composition of a well drafted and implemented elections law.

I do not by any means insinuating that Constituents of Kangema, Ndhiwa and Kajiado North do not deserve their representation in parliament. It is their constitutional right to be represented in parliament, but my fury is directed to the lackadaisical nature of the sitting members of parliament in passing legislation until when it becomes too late. In the meantime following the provisions of the constitution and pending the enactment of the statute act, the areas that have lost their representatives will have to wait longer. 

This raises another very important point, which is what happens when we have a lacuna in the law, because clearly we have no law regulating by elections and therefore the constituents who do not have representatives because of lack of proper legislation have a course of action in court for denial of a constitutional right. This lacuna in law is actually perilous because, the elections act also provides that the speaker has 21 days to declare a seat vacant and in case of any hindrances , within reasonable time, but the residents of Kangema will tell you that 4 months without a member of parliament is by no sense reasonable. The other constituencies will follow suit and it will create a crisis if the legislation is not enacted in haste. But parliament has their hands tied.

To lower the age of elective positions or not.

History as usual is the learning point of Kenyan public and politicians. A few years back we had a leader in the coastal region who was forced to step down after he could not step up to the game of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, this is because the educationalists found him unfit to be a form four graduate after he persistently scored E’s in the exam and thus continued to fall within the precincts of a class eight drop out.

This sad state of affairs perhaps had a hand in the informed decision of the committee of experts when they require a certain level of education before one is allowed to vie for elective positions. Surely this are the same people who represent our voices in the international arena, I will be damned if I allowed a nit wit leader to go and parade my fellow statesmen in high end conferences as half wits simply because he decided to squander his educational time. Section 22 of the election act specifically states that such a person is valid for election if they hold a valid and I insist valid post secondary school certificate from a recognized institution, so my undereducated you better go back to class because, how can we entrust a senile, incompetent lunatic to control our funds yet they know nothing about accountability, this will be nothing short of ludicrousity if there is such a word.

Do we want indecisive leaders?

 

It has been stated countless times that, presidential aspirants and their deputies will not be allowed to contend for other elective positions. Some members think they are smarter than Kenyans, and the elites who have devoted their time in churning loads of books, by trying to creep in a clause lessening stern position of the act on indecisive leaders however the general public has caught up with them. The MP’s sought to replace the words ‘shall not’ with the words ‘may not’. In my primary grammar; shall not is prohibitive, indicating that something must happen or somebody is obliged to do something because of a rule or law, may not, gives a possibility of deviating from the general rule. It is with such ingenuity that laws are changed to mean something else when on the face of it appears to mean something else.

 This is a warning to those conniving sons and daughters of this land,we the statesmen are alert on such grotesque, outlandish and laughable technique they are using to circumvent the law however I think its the appropriate time for me to tell them to wake up and smell the coffee because all eyes are on them…….