Lawmakers clear road for Uhuru, Raila Azimio deal

President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga on Wednesday won big after MPs allowed coalition political parties to field candidates in all elective seats in the August 9 election.

The lawmakers resisted attempts by Deputy President William Ruto and ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi’s allies in their push to restrict coalition parties to field only presidential candidates in an election.

In an overwhelming verdict on Wednesday, 132 MPs backing Uhuru and Raila voted to defeat the proposal by ANC’s Sakwa Bunyasi (Nambale MP).

The import of Bunyasi’s amendment was that political parties in a coalition would have had the room to nominate their representatives to compete for a particular seat.

The proposed law would have tied coalitions to only sponsoring presidential candidates and leaving members of the outfit to fight it out when it came to the other seats.

According to the Nambale MP, parties affiliated with a coalition should be the ones responsible for candidates in the remaining five political seats and not the umbrella coalition.

“This is to give freedom to the coalition parties to field candidates for the rest of the positions,” he said, adding it was the way to go in a democracy.

Before the vote, there were attempts to implore the Nambale lawmaker to drop the amendment, arguing that the Bill has already provided that a coalition exists as a political party.

Adan Keynan, who is Eldas MP and Jubilee Joint Parliamentary Group secretary, said, “The rejection will bring civility in our politics. It will inject predictability, trust, and party discipline.”

The amendment, observers hold, would have dealt a blow to Uhuru and Raila’s plans of using the coalition law to deal with internal competition.

The Star has established that Azimio la Umoja, Raila Odinga's 2022 machine, is planning to either have joint nominations or zone the country.

In zoning, the coalition would have affiliate parties field candidates in areas they enjoy solid backing or where a party has dominant support.

The Azimio plan borrows heavily from the defunct Mwai Kibaki’s National Rainbow Coalition of 2002, which brought to an end Kanu’s 39 years rule.

Just like Narc, there will be a hybrid system where Azimio la Umoja coalition and individual parties will field candidates separately during the August polls.

This is viewed as a clever way of ensuring the mother party gets more numbers to push the agenda of the coalition in the bicameral Parliament.

Minority leader John Mbadi told the Star that Azimio will allow only one candidate in each elective seat.

He said competition between constituent parties, as was in 2017, could lead to splitting votes and losing seats in some areas.

“No party that is part of the coalition will field a candidate for the same seat. We will not field two candidates belonging to Azimio for one elective seat,” Mbadi said.

Some 111 MPs sided with the Bill. The UDA-leaning side also lost in all the other amendments that were moved during Wednesday's debate.

An amendment by Garissa Township MP Aden Duale, which sought to delete the timelines for forming coalition parties, was defeated.

Majority leader Amos Kimunya succeeded in his amendment, extending the deadline for reaching coalition agreements to 120 days to the general election.

There were brief altercations as Kimunya sought to move his amendment. A push and shove ensued for a while before orderlies intervened.

MPs were denied bottled water "to avert instances where lawmakers use them as weapons in case of fights".

Saku MP Dido Rasso’s bid to remove clauses that seek to outlaw party hopping were also defeated in the vote.

A similar amendment by Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa citing grounds the clause (10) risked being misused to send away people from political parties was also defeated.

“It is punitive and will give room for misuse. Let us support the proposal to delete the clause," Barasa said. 

"You will be thrown out if the party leaders or chairmen by the sheer feeling that you are associating with a competing political party.” 

Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi said, “That amendment must be defeated. Once you choose to be a member of a political party, you stick by the party.”

Daniel Maanzo said, “This is in the Constitution and in the existing parties’ law. We cannot delete it but are simply improving to enforce party discipline.”

Abdisalan Mohammed said, “The idea is to instil discipline and ensure party ideology is subscribed to. When you have no ideologies to subscribe to, you lose the meaning of being in a party. Once you form a political party or join one, you cease to promote ideologies of other entities.”

Otiende Amollo said, "The proposal by Dido Raso must fall. For the same reason the Barasa proposal fell. The proposal aims to bring political hygiene.”

In the ensuing developments, coalitions will be required to submit their pre-election agreements to the Registrar of Political Parties by April 9.

"As you know, all winning coalitions and formations in the history of this country have cropped up in under four months to the polls,” Keynan said.

“The beauty of this 120 days time frame is that it leaves ample time for extensive consultations and concurrence among political players on ideology, manifestos and lineups and still have adequate time to popularise their candidates," he added.

The provision was among the contentious issues in the Kimunya-sponsored Bill.

Those opposed said the six-month timeline was meant to blackmail parties to join Azimio.