Alphonce SHIUNDU

Ever since I wrote about the ludicrous proposal to reserve 72 constituencies for women in elections , I got the sense that the proposal was impractical. After listening to so many people give their views, I get the sense that only a judicial declaration that the principle of "not more than two thirds of either gender" in elective and appointive posts will sort out the matter. I pray that the declaration labels the principle as one that is aspired bearing in mind the robustly patriarchal nature of the Kenyan society. That, to me will be the best way out as women will become emboldened to go out there and compete. There are those who insist that the Constitution should be amended in the sense of deleting clause 27(8) or just amending it to read 'appointive' and not 'elective' . To people who know about the affirmative action debate, this is a joke. A rude one! And should not be entertained. But then if the judges rule otherwise, what are the alternatives? I do...

One good thing when you are a journalist, is that you get to access things that the rest of the people will never reach. So, on Saturday afternoon, I had my date with a professor from the University of Nairobi. Prof Francis WO Aduol. He is a good man, a very enthusiastic fellow. He was helpful beyond measure in the way he explained the 90:10 formula. If you have your calculator ready or care to follow the maths, then join me and let's see how this works. This is how it works. Kenya has an area of 582,102 square kilometers. The population is estimated at 40 million (though Prof Aduol's study uses 28.7 million as obtained from the 1999 census). In dividing the total population with the number of constituencies, one gets the average population at 95,626 people. That's the average population per constituency. If the total area is also divided by the 300 constituencies, it yields 1,940 square kilometres as the average size of a constituency. So how do we achieve the 'one man...