Members of Parliament and Senators have a leeway of 22 days to register themselves to join a political party.
This is after the Registrar of Political Parties Ann Nderitu highlighted that the lawmakers are holding their seats illegally after defecting from political parties that sponsored them to Parliament.
According to the Registrar, clerks of the National Assembly, MPs and the Senate, in the case of senators, have the responsibility of declaring the seats vacant after being properly notified by lawmakers transferring political parties.
“What happens will be determined by momentous actions of the Speakers of the relevant Houses,” she said, adding that her office’s mandate was to facilitate the membership movement.
However, the Speakers of Parliament and county assemblies will have the last say in determining whether seats held by elected leaders who shift parties on March 26 will become vacant, triggering by-elections.
“They will have to inform the Clerk of either House of Parliament and my office before they are declared to have lost the seats,” Nderitu said when she appeared before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, chaired by Kangema MP Muturi Kigano yesterday.
She added: “It is a delicate matter. One will have to inform the clerk or my office before the seat is declared vacant, but as it is now the members will continue serving.”
According to Section 124 (b) of the Standing Order, the proceedings of either House are not invalid just because of-(a) a vacancy in its membership; or (b) the presence or participation of any person not entitled to be present at, or to participate in, the proceedings of the House.
By-elections, however, are unlikely to take place, according to the Registrar, because they cannot be held three months before the General Election.
A by-election must be held once a member of Parliament or a county assembly has left the party that sponsored them.
Article 101 (5) of the Constitution stipulates that a by-election shall not be held within three months immediately before a General Election.
Section 37 (3) of the Elections Act provides that a vacancy in any of the nominative seats shall not be filled three months immediately before a General Election.
It, therefore, means that with the General Election set for August 9, counting three months backward, it means no by-election shall be held beyond May 9.
Proclamation by the Registrar comes at a time when hundreds of MPs have left their former parties to join new ones ahead of the April 22 nominations.
Over 130 MPs loyal to Deputy President William Ruto are alleged to have defected to the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) from the Jubilee party.
Another group of Amani National Congress members defected to the newly-established Democratic Action Party, while others defected to the ODM.