Political News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

KENYA’ Parliament could have its constituencies expanded from the present 210 to 290 seats, if the recommendations contained therein the Andrew Ligale led Independent Interim Boundary Review Commission {IIBRC} were to be implemented.

But already the recommendations contained therein the leaked document has sparked off the storm with some furious MPs accusing the IIBRC’s team led by the former Vihiga MP and one time Assistant minister for Housing of being biased and having short-changed certain region while favoring the others.

The MPs from the Coast Province, which harvested the least new constituencies are up in arms accusing the Commission for having shortchanged their region. Coast will get only 4 new constituencies.

Both ODM and PNU member of parliament took took differing stands and positions over the formula used to distribute the 80 extra new parliamentary constituencies as he boundaries review commission defended its system.

And while the ODM MPs supported the distribution of the new constituencies and asked the IIBRC to gazette them immediately, the PNU MPs accused the Commission’s chairman Andrew Ligale and his team of deliberately ignoring the formula laid down in the new constitution and declare their vehement opposition to the proposal urging that the publication of the new list be stopped.

According to the leaked document, the expansive Rift Valley Province will have the lion’ share of 27 new parliamentary constituencies that will increase its parliamentary representation to 79 from the original 49.

Another region that is likely to double its parliamentary strength from original 8 to 17 is the capital City of Nairobi. Nyanza Province will get 9 new constituencies bringing its strength to a total of 41 from the original 32.

North Eastern Province an are which is sparsely will increase its MPs from 11 to 17, while the densely populated Easter Province will get 7 additional constituencies and this will increase its numbers from the original36 to 41.

Western Province, another densely populated region will 7 extra constituencies to bring its strength in the August House to 33 from the original 24. The Central Province ,another highly populated areas will harvest 4 new constituencies that will bring its parliamentary strength to 33 from the original 29. And the Coast Province will get 4 to bring its strength to 25 from the original 21,

The proposals are categorized in two options. Option one will create only 74 new extra constituencies that will increase the number of elected MPs from 2010 to 284.

In the Option Two which is expected to be the final one, the number of the new constituencies will be increase by 80.br9nging the total to 290.

In this category, the Coast Province will get 5 news constituencies making a total of 26, while Nairobi will get 8 more constituencies bringing its strength to 16. North Eastern Province will get 7 extra seats to crown it with 18 seats from the original 11.

Eastern Province will get 8 new constituencies to bring its strength to 44 from the original 36.Central Province will get 5 new constituencies to increased its strength from the original 29 to 34.

The Rift Valley will get 27 improving its strength to 76 from the original 49, while Western will get 10 new constituencies to top its strength up with 34 seats from the original 24. And its neighboring Nyanza Province is also expected to get 10 extra constituencies to bring its total representation to 42 from the original 32.

According to document leaked to the newspapers, the IIBRC used key factors in determining and creating the new constituencies.

These include the national population, then ideal population quota per constituency as well as quotas in cities, urban centers, rural areas and sparsely populated areas.

The IIBRC used the national population as outlined in the latest census of 38,610,097 to determine the ideal population size of a constituency to be 133,138 people. The population quotas for the constituencies in the Cities such as Nairobi was decided to be 186,393,people which is 40 per cent greater that the national quota.

Constituencies in major towns were set at 173mo79 people which is 30 per cent greater than the national quota, rural constituencies 93,196 and those in sparsely populated areas 79,882.

According to this formula, Nairobi the capital City which has eight constituencies no needs additional nine constituencies to meet the required upper limited of 186,393 people.

The Coast Province with a population of 3,325,307 will have seven new parliamentary constituencies. North Easter wth the population of 2,310,757 will have the number of its MPs be increased from 11 to 17, while Eastern Province with a population 00f 2,310757 will get 7 constituencies.

Eastern Province with a population of 5,668,123 will also have seven new constituencies, while Central Province with the population of 4, 383,743 people will get four extra constituencies.

The expansive Rift Valley with the population of 10,006,805 will have 27 new constituencies while Nyanza Province with 5,442,711 will get 10 extra constituencies while Western with population of 4,334,282 will harvest nine new constituencies.

Presently, Eastern has 36, Rift Valley 49, Nyanza 32, Western 24. Accordng to an article analyzing this published by the Nairobi STAR, if the provincial population was strictly applied, this would yield onlym74 new constituencies and not the 680 stipulated in the new constitution..

The formula, however, ignores some other aspect such as geography, but guarantees existence of the population level.

At least 27 of the existing constituencies do not meet these criteria and would have been scrapped or merged if they were not protected in the new constitution. These include Lamu East, Lamu West, Mvita, Mwatate, Taveta, Undanyi, Voi, Bura and Galole in the Coast Province.

Others are Kilome, Siakago, Laisamis, North Horr, Saku in Eastern. Others which are also in this category are Ndaragwa ,Tetu, Mukurweni, Othaya Kangema, and Mathioya in Central,Samburu East, Marakwet East, Keiyo North, Mogotio in the Rift Valley and Vihiga and Budalangi in Western Province.

None of the constituencies are in North Eastern Province whose census result were cancelled following anomalies in the enumeration. Them number are still in doubt.

Ends

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com