How I Was Elected Speaker of The 7th Parliament

It was at the beginning of 1993 that i vied for the position that was to give me a National Profile. The process of electing the Speaker of the National Assembly was intense and bruising. To be elected Speaker under the standing orders, one was required to garner two-thirds of the votes in the house. If that figure was not reached in round one, then the process was to be repeated in round two. If on the second round, nobody garnered the two thirds of the votes, a third round of voting was undertaken. In this round, whoever won by simple majority was declared the Speaker of the National Assembly.

The new house then comprised one hundred and ten members from the ruling party, KANU, and one hundred members representing the totality of the opposition parties all of whom were elected members. Under the laws of the constitution, the President was entitled to nominate 12 persons as the members of the National Assembly, including myself. The house therefore had a total strength of 222 members, excluding the Attorney General who was an ex-official member. Of these 222 members, 121 were present for voting. I as a Candidate could not vote.

My name was proposed by none other than the member for Baringo central who also happened to be leader of the ruling party KANU and the head of state himself. He was Seconded by Prof George Saitoti the country’s Vice President. On the basis of their strong voice, the ruling party settled the matter of its candidate ready to battle it out with whomever the opposition had chosen as its candidate. And so the voting for the Speakership began. It was a strict party line voting. It was us versus them. Open hostility was on display everywhere one looked, Members of Parliament on the Government side never said hello to those on the opposing side and vise versa.

It was the conclusion of the third-round vote , and i had just been elected the third Speaker of the National Assembly-the Seventh Kenyan Parliament. The unnerving isolation, in the Chief Sergeant -at-Arm’s Office, where Hon Moses Kiprono arap Keino and I had been waiting, had finally come to an end. Moments earlier, Judge Benna Lutta had withdrawn his candidature of Speaker in favor of Moses arap Keino. The prolonged wait was mercifully interrupted when the Chief Sergeant-at-Arms, the head of security in Parliament opened the door. His face stern, giving no hint at all of what had just transpired on the floor of the August house. He had to play the role in stringent compliance with the rules that guided the election of the Speaker of the National Assembly.

“Is there one Francis Xavier Ole Kaparo in this room?”, the Chief Sergeant-at-Arms asked. ‘Yes Sir’, I said. ‘Follow me!’ he said. As we hurried out of the office and marched through the speaker’s wall, the Vice President Hon George Saitoti, as the leader of Government business, and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, as the leader of the opposition, joined us as we made our way to the entrance of the chamber of the National Assembly. There, flanked by the two leaders, the Chief Sergeant-at Arms signaled our grand entry into the chamber: ‘Honorable Members, Mr Speaker!’ It was one of the few moments in my life when i have had to fight back tears. All the members stood up, including the Head of State. He was there as member elect for Baringo.