Gladys Shollei's Proposal is the Best we have

 No more than two thirds of members of any elective or appointive positions shall be 

of the same gender. So forbids Constitutuition of Kenya 2010. The third gender rule as

it is mostly referred to, has continued to get a ping pong in parliament, which is itself a target 

of this provision. Kenyan parliament remains dominated by men since 1963.

There have been efforts to realize this legal requirement in the past. Most notably, 

towards the general election of 2017. The majority leader in the National Assembly Mr.Aden  

Duale tried his best but a greater portion of legislators were reluctant to support him.

Perhaps the timing was wrong and members thought that the act was likely to affect their 

personal ambitions.

The  women representative of Uasin Gishu, Gladys Boss Shollei publicized her intent to table

 a bill in Parliament to fix the gender rule issue with finality. For many months now, the leadership

 of parliament has not given it chance to come to the floor. 

Her bill intends to have women directly elected by the people rather than relying on nominations

 to fill the gaps because currently, Kenyan society has high patriarchal leanings and for this 

reason we will continue to see more men elected than men for a long time to come.

Nominations are prone to abuse by party leaders who often fill slots with friends or relatives

 with little regard to need for citizens to benefit from skilled people within the population. 

Male politicians have also a feeling that women are benefiting too much from nominations 

yet they enjoy the same status as elected members upon nomination.

The bill by Shollei will achieve the constitutional threshold by pairing existing constituencies

 and having such all pairs elect a woman. During an election, all constituencies will have the

 liberty to elect their members of parliament without any consideration of gender.

On top of that, a separate ballot will be required for every pair of constituencies to

 elect a “women representative.”

This pairing up is not the same as merging. It is a concept that has to be visualized and actualized. For now we have MPs elected in all constituencies within a county but on top of that there is one woman elected to represent the whole county, hence the reference county member of parliament.

In this regard, Shollei’s bill does not seek to scrap the position of women rep, rather it creates 

similar positions in every two constituencies.Going by the fact that we have two hundred and ten

 units, it means the national assembly will automatically end up with at least one hundred and five

 women.

The county assemblies will also be positively affected. For them, the intended legislation will seek to group wards in to threes and have them elect a woman besides each unit electing their own member of county assembly.

This proposal in my view is best approach so far to settling the third gender rule debate and a guaranteed smile on women faces. However, there have been a lot of opposition to it already. Some Women Representatives have attacked Mrs. Shollei with a slant that she is so ungrateful to even contemplate abolishing a position which she vied for and won in the elections of 2017.  

The majority leader in the National Assembly has begun a new initiative to address the same issue.

It will be interesting to see what he will achieve this time. Mean while I call upon all women and all constitution loving Kenyans to support the Gladys Shollei proposal. Her bill in some way cures the noisy attempts of creating special constituencies for women.

Kenya Women legislators protest outside parliament in favour third gender rule/staardmedia