Political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi on Wednesday argued that Chief Justice David Maraga could dissolve Parliament if MPs failed to pass the Two-Third Gender Bill.

Mr Ngunyi advised Members of the National Assembly to watch on how they manoeuvre and vote on the Bill, which some of them were opposed to.

Maraga's History

"If the Gender Bill does not pass, Article 261 of the constitution gives powers to Maraga to dissolve Parliament. Given his history, Maraga will dissolve Parliament. MPs should be AFRAID. very afraid," Mr Ngunyi tweeted.

According to the Court’s opinion, parliament is to be dissolved where it fails to enact legislation required by the constitution on a particular matter.

In practice as well, the two houses of Parliament do not comply with the gender requirement.

There are 76 women in the National Assembly including 23 elected MPs, 47 woman representatives and six nominated members.

The Senate has 21 women members of whom 19 are nominated while three were elected.

World Ranking

Kenya ranks low in women representation with only 22 per cent of MPs being women. Rwanda ( 61 per cent) and Ethiopia ( 50 per cent) are the only African countries that have achieved the two-thirds gender rule.

MPs opposing the Bill argued that creating additional parliamentary seats would cost Kenyan taxpayers millions of dollars in extra salaries.

Others have questioned how nominations of candidates would be conducted, suggesting that politician’s wives, girlfriends and mistresses would be given seats by proxy.