The Government
and the Political System
The Republic of Kenya is a unitary State. Kenya won its independence
from British colonial rule on 12 December 1963. The country has
a multi-party political system whose hallmark is parliamentary democracy. The
core of the system is a National Assembly, or Parliament. This
is a unicameral House consisting of 210 directly elected members (Member
of Parliament - MP), and 12 members nominated proportionally by political
parties represented in Parliament. In addition to these, there
are two ex-officio members - the Speaker and the Attorney-General.
The MPs serve a 5-year term in Parliament.
The President of the Republic of Kenya, together with the Vice-President
and the Cabinet Ministers comprise the
executive. The President
appoints both the Vice-President and the Cabinet. The President
is elected directly for a 5-year term. In order to win, a candidate
must get majority vote with at least 25% of the votes cast in at least
5 of the country's 8 provinces.
Since independence in 1963, the National Assembly has progressively
made amendments to the Constitution. These changes have been
aimed at strengthening the democratic system by guaranteeing the freedom
of expression and free and fair elections, amongst other things. In
September 1997 for instance, the Assembly passed legislation which
prohibited detention without trial. The Assembly also ensures that
during general elections, all political parties get equal access to
the media. Furthermore, all parties, including those in the
opposition have the right to nominate members for the 12 seats reserved
for nominated MPs. A party that secures
seats that guarantee it to nominate MPs do
so in proportion
to the actual number of National Assembly seats it holds.
All the above measures are engraved in the Constitution. As
a result of this, parliamentary politics in Kenya is an open, free,
fair and highly competitive field. Kenya has indeed held all
its general elections - presidential, parliamentary, and local authorities
every 5 years as required by the Constitution, without fail since the
country attained independence in 1963.
The current President of Kenya is now His Excellency Mwai Kibaki who
was sworn in on 30th December 2007 for a second
and final term after.
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