Leaders split over law banning party hopping

 

National Assembly Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso accompanied by Bomet Women Representative Cecilia Ngetich addresses the media. (Photo: Boniface Okendo/Standard)

The principle behind this law barring party-hopping is to ensure that our parties change from election vehicles to strong institutions that stand for certain ideologies.

The less parties we have, the more people will focus on what the parties stand for.

It must start somewhere and we are alive to the fact that some leaders are against it for various reasons.

But we must support it so that our leaders don’t just join political parties for election purposes but because of what the outfits stand for, their manifesto and vision for the country.

It is already gaining some popularity and you can see small parties sharing ideologies are coming together.

Jubilee and NASA are good examples of several parties championing a similar cause joining hands.

The issue of parties being owned by some few individuals should end so that when people go for party nominations, they can only be defeated by the most popular opponents, not some individuals close to the party leader.

It is no secret that our party nominations are still a big mess. But as Jubilee, we are addressing this matter by asking the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to supervise our primaries.

There is a window for people to make decision in terms of which party they want to join and run on in the August 8. Let them make the decision now so that they should not have any other reason to decamp after losing in the primaries.