Govt wants cities to elect Woman MPs

Left to right: Mbale Woman MP Connie Nakayenze, then MP Ronah Ninsiima, and Oyam South legislator Betty Amongi address a press conference in 2013. The number of Women MPs is set to increase if cities elect others. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • MP numbers. Currently, there are 457 MPs in the House with 12 of them being ex-officios. The number of elected MPs in the 11th Parliament may rise up to 521. Currently, new Parliamentary chambers poised to host 600 seats are being constructed and may be up for use by the time the 11th Parliament is expected to be sworn-in in May next year.

The seven new cities that became operational on July 1 are set to elect woman MPs if Parliament approves the motion tabled by the Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Prof Ephraim Kamuntu.

Prof Kamuntu, who is seeking Parliament’s review of the affirmative action representation of interest groups, said a Cabinet sitting on Monday approved the decision.

The proposal will be debated during today’s plenary after Speaker Rebecca Kadaga guided that the minister separates the motion for review of the affirmative action representation from the composition of Parliament.

“I think we need two motions. The one where Parliament will determine the new composition. The second motion is to review. By introducing the elderly, we are amending the composition as required under 71 (2). These will be debated tomorrow (today),” Ms Kadaga said yesterday.

Prof Kamuntu said the government is moving the motion in regard to the provisions of Section 8(3) of the Parliamentary Elections Act, 2005, and, Articles 78(2) and 78(1) of the Constitution.

Last week, Cabinet approved the proposal to have five representatives of the elderly elected into the 11th Parliament.

The cities that would send woman MPs are Arua, Mbale, Mbarara, Fortportal, Gulu, Jinja and Masaka. This means with each having two divisions, every city will send three MPs to Parliament.

Currently, there are 124 woman MPs representing 123 districts and Kampala but the number could rise to 135 when the 12 new districts that have not voted since becoming operational in 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 get a chance to elect their own in the forthcoming general election. With seven woman MPs for the cities, the number will rise to 143 woman representatives.

The rest of the cities, which will be operationalised in a phased manner until July 2023, may have to wait until 2026 to be able to elect their MPs because of the provisions included in the newly enacted electoral reforms.

Both the amendments to the Parliamentary Elections Act, Local Governments Act and the Electoral Commission Act, new administrative units that will be created after the general election will not elect their leaders until the next one.

The new reforms provide that there will only be by-elections in case of death or resignation of the office bearer. The second motion will be for the government seeking approval for the affirmative action to have five MPs representing the older persons.

Currently, the special interest group representation provides for 10 army MPs, five youth MPs, five Workers MPs and five MPs for Persons with Disability (PwDs).

Workers MP Sam Lyomoki asked Prof Kamuntu to also respond to the petition on his table seeking to increase the number of Youth MPs, Workers MPs and PwDs representatives to 10.

The approval of the five slots for MPs for the elderly comes at a time when Parliament is expected to receive a hamonised list of constituencies from the Ministry of Local government.

Two weeks ago, MPs opposed the creation of only 15 constituencies across the country questioning why requests from other parts of the country had been ignored by Local Government Minister Raphael Magyezi.

The matter was on Tuesday’s Order Paper and is still expected today.