Machakos County Governor Dr Alfred Mutua has made a raft of ambitious proposals to the Building Bridges Initiate including the abolishing of the women rep position.
Mr Mutua wants the post replaced with a reserved member of parliament position for women in a single constituency per county.
This would reduce the number of legislators “bloating” the government, Mutua said on Wednesday at the KICC,
According to Mutua, the system would work through a declaration in the Constitution that a specific constituency in a county was reserved for women.
“The system could also be rotational and move through constituencies because we need to accommodate women in the political landscape,” he said.
At the same time, Mutua wants an expanded National Executive to have a President, Deputy President, Prime Minister and two Deputy Prime Ministers with specific mandates.
He said presidential candidates be allowed to run or be nominated as MPs so as to lead their party agenda in Parliament.
“The current situation where very popular leaders are locked out of governance structures is partly responsible for the street demonstrations and violence because that’s the only forum left for these leaders to express their views and address their supporters,” said Mutua.
Speaking on behalf of his party Maendeleo Chap Chap, Mutua also proposed the President, Deputy President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister to run for election on a joint ticket so that whichever political arrangement wins, it has a broad representation of the face of Kenya.
In such a system, the President, Deputy President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister sould come from different communities and not more than two Cabinet Secretaries should come from the same ethnic community.
“This way, many communities will be part of the core Executive of the National Government,” he said.
Mutua also wants the Leader of Opposition to be at the same level with the Prime Minister in official protocol and recognition.
The Machakos County chief also proposed the installation of CCTV cameras in each polling station with a feed to each political party.
“The footage is useful in verifying numbers and for real-time monitoring of the electoral process. This will defeat the feeling of rigging in the country as the people can see the counting process live and even tally with the officers,” said Mutua.
The former government spokesman further called for severe punishment in corruption cases.
He proposed the removal of optional fine in corruption convictions and punishment be severe depending on amount stolen with minimum conviction to be jail term of two years up to life imprisonment.
