The rules governing presidential elections in Kenya, which require a candidate to have a majority as well as a parliamentary district and 25% of the vote in at least 5/8 regions, have focused attention on the main contender’s parliamentary district. The intense competition in the district has exacerbated (at least) the vote buying in the district, […]

Afriquenligne reports:
Kenyan political parties have spent a massive US$ 20 million to fund campaigns for their presidential and parliamentary candidates ahead of the 27 December elections, a UN-funded political expenditure monitoring report revealed here Monday.
The article also discusses several instances of political finance malpractice, especially the use of government resources for campaigning purposes.
The press release by the […]

The BBC reports that Kenyan electoral authority has charged the state run broadcaster with violating the provision of equal time to all presidential candidates, instead providing biased coverage in favor of President Kibaki.

While the Political Parties Bill that would introduce public funding and disclosure of political finance awaits the presidents signature, candidates and parties for the December elections are busy demanding and supplying nominations, for which fees are levied by the parties. These fees are small (up to US$1500), but are an important source of funding for the […]

Kenya’s parliament passed a reform that would introduce public funding of political parties, limits on parties to contributions, tax deductions on those contributions, and disclosure of party finance. It would also prohibit MPs from switching parties while in the parliament and introduces a new set of party registration requirements. The bill still needs to be […]

An opinion in the Business Daily (Kenya) courtesy of AllAfrica.com criticizes foreign donations to political parties, particularly by the US’s International Republican Institute:

To understand the absurdity of what Africans have accepted as a norm, imagine African countries financing a third party in the United States.
… African election processes should be monitored by the African Union, the […]

An op-ed in Kenya’s Business Daily (at AllAfrica.com) worries about the potential consequences of a new tax break (up to ~US$13,700) for political donations: beyond reducing the state’s revenues, it may be ”misused for tax evasion, money laundering and as a back channel for sleazy campaign finance shenanigans….” 
The fact that the entire donation can be deducted from one’s tax […]

An opinion by Kipngeno Cheruiyot in the Sunday Times of Kenya writes in favor of public financing of parties in Kenya and particularly the proposal of the National Democratic Institute, which has been doing a study of political finance in Africa. The proposal sounds as though it is taken from Voting with Dollars (reviewed here), […]

A new Political Parties Bill under debate in Kenya has come under fire from a group of women legislators for not including measures that encourage political activity by women and for not making public funding mandatory, the Daily Nation reports. In another story, they also report that the Electoral Commission of Kenya has set up a committee “to block […]

By way of AllAfrica.com, East African Standard writes that a proposed reform was “unreasonable”:

The enactment of a law to govern political parties hit a snag after a section of politicians described it as unreasonable and called for its withdrawal.
Party officials and Members of Parliament instead advocated for an overhaul of the Political Parties Bill 2007, […]