Review eligibility rules for Gender Commission candidates

By ATIENO ODUOR

The Commission for Implementation of the Constitution and the Cabinet have finalised the National Gender Commission Bill, which will address issues of gender parity, particularly as they affect women. However, in looking at the Bill, the eligibility requirement to serve as a member of the commission strikes one as too stringent, discriminatory and flawed.

The Bill states that "a person is not qualified to be appointed as the chairperson or a member if such a person—(a) has at any time within the preceding five years, held office, or stood for election as –(i) a Member of Parliament or of a country assembly; (ii) a member of the governing body of a political party or (iii) holds any State Office."

Why disqualify those who have attempted to run for electoral office?

Perhaps the idea is to make the commission totally apolitical and independent of government, but it makes flawed assumptions that those who don’t run for office are politically neutral, those who run are incapable of being non-partisan, and lastly, that the art of politics is only confined to electoral campaigns and political parties without any glamorous presence in other societal institutions such as religious organisations, academic circles, civil society and private corporations.

The unavoidable reality is that politics permeates all segments of the society be they public or private.

Those in politics are not necessarily evil just as those in civil society groups are not necessarily upright. Biased provisions lock out potential strong candidates and send the wrong message to women and girls aspiring to lead this nation.

What is clear is not one’s ability or inability to be apolitical, but rather to embody leadership qualities enshrined in Chapter Six of the Constitution together with the relevant job experience.

The writer is a graduate student at John Hopkins University in the US