The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) now wants all political parties to comply with the 2/3 gender rule while submitting a list of nominees for this year’s General Election.
In a letter dated Wednesday, April 27, IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati reminded all political parties to comply with existing statutory obligations.
“You are hereby reminded that all political parties participating in the upcoming General Election must comply with the existing statutory obligations and ensure all nominated lists of nominated candidates for the 290constituency based elective positions for Members of the National Assembly and 47 County-based positions for the Members of Senate must comply with two-thirds gene rule,” the commission said.
To ensure the actualization of the two-third gender rule, the commission’s chair warned that he will not accept the list of nominees from the political parties if it does not comply with the two-third gender rule.
“In the event, a nomination list does not comply with the two-thirds gender requirement, the commission will reject the list and communicate the rejection in writing to the political party,” Chebukati said.
According to Chebukati in the event a political party presents a list of 290 candidates for constituency-based elective positions, not more than 193 candidates can be of the same gender.
“In the event, that a political party presents a list including 47 candidates for county-based positions for Members of Senate, not more than 31 candidates can be of the same gender,” he said.
Article 27(8) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 provides that the State shall take steps to ensure that not more than two-thirds of members of all elective and appointive positions are not of the same gender.
Ten years after the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, there is yet to be enacted specific legislation to operationalize this constitutional provision on gender equality.
Consequently, the Kenyan Parliament has been wrongly castigated for failure to enact the relevant legislation following the promulgation of the Constitution.
Only 9.8 percent of the tenth Parliament was comprised of women, and only 20.7 percent of the eleventh (sitting) Parliament is women the lowest in East Africa.
