The Commissions including Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the Constitution Implementation Oversight Commission (CIOC), Constitution Implementation Commission (CIC) and the Gender Commission have agreed on a formula that will ensure the gender rule is attained.
They have agreed that political parties will give a list of nominees whose names will be used to top up the numbers for the disadvantaged group if the 2/3 threshold is not attained after the forthcoming election.
The Commissions agreed that the General Election will have to be held first and if the gender rule is not attained, names from the list of nominees provided by political parties will be picked to bridge the differences and ensure that neither gender is more than 2/3 in the National Assembly
The teams agreed that political parties file a list of nominees with IEBC through a thorough and competitive process to enable the electoral body to use it to settle the gender difference that may arise.
But for this proposal to sail through, a constitutional amendment will be sought to embrace the formula.
This means that a vote of two thirds of the Members of the National Assembly will be needed to implement the formula.
Last week, a section of MPs backed a proposal by Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo to have each county elect two women representatives to the National Assembly, amid hopes that more women will be elected and nominated.
Posted by Koome Kimonye and Daniel Korir
