Primary losers to participate in key House business

Priscila Nyokabi, the nyeri woman representative PHOTO:COURTESY

Parliament re-opens with party primary losers expected to participate in key House business before it adjourns for the August 8 elections.

Among those who lost in the elections are Deputy Leader of Minority Jakoyo Midiwo, an avid debater whose constant spurring with National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale on the floor of the House gave the 11th Parliament some of its most defining moments.

Nyeri Woman Representative Priscilla Nyokabi will make a last pitch for the passage of the two-thirds gender Bill before she bows out of the House.

Ms Nyokabi will be leaving the House in the wake of fresh attempts to introduce the Bill that Parliament failed to enact in the past four years.

She was among women MPs who pushed for the enactment of the law, whose passage would have seen more women MPs sit in the House.

LAST DAYS

Also serving his last days in the House will be Tetu MP Ndung’u Gethenji, better known as the bow tie MP, who was infamous for locking out journalists from the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs.

Others are Jamleck Kamau (Kigumo), Kabando wa Kabando (Mukurweini), Joseph Kiuna (Njoro), Jacob Macharia (Molo), Raphael Otalo (Lurambi), Oburu Oginga (nominated), and Maina Kamanda (Starehe).

The National Assembly chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Nicholas Gumbo, and Nominated MP Isaac Mwaura as well as Nyeri Senator Mutahi Kagwe and his Murang’a counterpart, Kembi Gitura, who is also the Deputy Senate Speaker, are among those who lost in the party primaries.

Others such as Mombasa Woman Representative Mishi Mboko and her Kilifi counterpart, Aisha Jumwa, will be wearing new hats as possible members of Parliament for Likoni and Malindi constituencies respectively.

Nominated MP Johnson Sakaja will be serving his last days as a member of the National Assembly as he sets his sights on the Senate.

Kiharu MP Irungu Kang’ata hopes to move from the National Assembly to the Senate after his win over the Senate Deputy Speaker.

More than half of the MPs lost in the primaries, although many of them have opted to run as independent candidates in the August poll.

Other key business of the House that election primary losers will be expected to participate in is the passage of the Finance Bill, which enumerates the tax measures the Government intends to take in the next financial year.