Nyeri leaders root for proportional voting and hybrid systems

Three Nyeri leaders have separately proposed two forms of governance - proportional representation and hybrid.

Former senator Mutahi Kagwe supports proportional representation while MPs Ngunjiri Wambugu (Nyeri Town) and Kanini Kega (Kieni) are for a hybrid system.

Proportional representation, Kagwe told Gukena FM on Monday’s Njung’wa night show, will bring peace and fair representation. It will also be cost effective.

But Wambugu and Kega say the government will be more inclusive if the positions of Prime Minister and two deputy PMs are created.

The MPs were presenting their views to the BBI in a Nyeri town hotel on Tuesday.

Kagwe said the PR system will end the cycle of post-election violence as the president will not be elected directly.

He said if PR was in place during 2017 elections Nyeri, which had over 350,000 votes out of the 8.2 million for Jubilee, would have qualified for 13 parliamentary seats instead of the current six.

Proportionate representation is an electoral system in which parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes cast for them.

Mt Kenya region, the former senator said, casts a large number of votes but end up having few MPs.

 “The new system of governance should not be a burden to taxpayers. That means if we decide that the parliamentary seats should be 290, then the disabled, women and youths should be factored there but there should be no nominations to attain the one third gender rule.”

According to Kagwe, “the role of representatives should be to represent a certain area as per the number of their votes and not constituencies.” 

Wambugu's presentation is that the President should be Head of State and the Prime Minister the Head of Government. “My proposal is that we change our system of government from the current one of a President and Deputy President to one that has a President, Deputy President, Prime Minister and two Deputy Prime Ministers.” 

As currently constituted, Kenya will continue to governed by two out of over 44 communities given that the country's politics is ethnic-based.

“This is a recipe for chaos and underdevelopment. It also strains national cohesion and increases insecurity. It also makes it very difficult to fight crimes like corruption,” the Nyeri Town MP said.

Kega proposed that Cabinet Secretaries be appointed from among MPs for wider representation of ethnic communities at senior government level.

“This is because those represented will have been elected by various communities at the constituency level and will bring in a legitimate voice of their respective communities to Cabinet and government policy deliberations.” 

He said Kenya needs fair representation. Presently, some constituencies have over 100,000 voters while others have less than 30,000 voters.

“To achieve fairness we must reconfigure our constituency boundaries to ensure that MPs represent as equal a number of voters as possible.”

Kega said those vying for the presidency should also be allowed to vie for either MP or senator seat so that if they do not win they will have a fallback position.

Edited by Francis Mwaniki