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A significant provision in the Constitution not oft spoken about is the declaration that Kenya shall be a multi-party democratic state, founded on the national values and principles of governance referred to in Article 10.

These values include inter-alia, patriotism, national unity, rule of law, democracy and participation of the people, among others. The Constitution further provides for separation of powers, through the three arms of government, namely the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, as well as the constitutional commissions.

An immediate beneficiary of these elaborate provisions has been Parliament. Removed from the shackles of the Executive, it can now set its own calendar, unlike the past. Members do not serve at the pleasure of the President but the citizens who elect them to office to represent, legislative and oversight on their behalf.

It is therefore disheartening to see members elected in recent elections begin to shift allegiance from the coalitions that propelled them to victory. As MPs settle down awaiting their business, they should remain conscious of the need to safeguard not just independence of the House, but also of all other institutions.

Part of this independence thrives from a robust opposition in the House, a weakness faced by the 12th Parliament. It is important that citizen wishes in the election by the choice of party affiliation, are reflected in the way parliamentarians conduct business.

Members must prioritise needs of the citizens who propelled them to office. And they are many. Concerns about the high cost of living, high debt ceiling, implications of global and regional challenges and conflicts on the local economy, a school calendar interrupted, and the economy generally are top of peoples mind.

The assumption then is that those expected to hold the government of the day to account, including implementation of the promises made, must play their role effectively and not sing to the choir. Independent candidates must also provide an independent voice.

We have come a long way from the one-party state and our country is better for it. Our Constitution has given us safeguards to ensure a thriving democracy. We must cultivate and sustain this, including ensuring that the openness and transparency expected of government agencies is protected, civil liberties around access to information, media freedom and association are enhanced and that citizens are active participants of the governance system at national and county level.

This can only happen in an environment where institutions play their rightful role, including holding other arms of government accountable. The citizens have made their choice of representatives on the different party tickets. Its the least they expect to ensure our democracy thrives.

The writer is Executive Director of Mzalendo Trust, Kenyas premier parliamentary monitoring organisation

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Why separation of powers is critical to thriving democracy - The Standard

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Editorial: What the River Democracy Act would mean for private property - The Bulletin

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

Journalists are allowed to request documents that have been stolen and to publish those documents. So wrote U.S. federal Judge John Koeltl in a 2019 opinion dismissing a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee against Julian Assange, Wikileaks and others. Assange published documents on the Wikileaks website in the very manner the judge described. Despite this, Julian Assange has been in solitary confinement in Britains maximum security Belmarsh prison for over three years. Before that, he spent seven years living in the cramped Ecuadorian embassy in London. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum as he faced mounting persecution from the U.S. government for his role in exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. is seeking Assanges extradition from the United Kingdom to face espionage and conspiracy charges and up to 175 years in prison. Assanges legal team is appealing the U.K.s approval of the extradition request. Meanwhile, a new case related to Wikileaks is before Judge Koeltl: journalists and several of Assanges attorneys have sued the Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, alleging the CIA spied on them when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, recording conversations and secretly copying their phones and laptops.

Im a New York lawyer, Deborah Hrbek, an attorney who met with Assange at the embassy several times, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. I have the right to assume that the U.S. government is not listening to my private and privileged conversations with my clients, and that information about other clients and cases I may have on my phone or laptop are secure from illegal government intrusion. This is not just a violation of our constitutional rights. This is an outrage.

CIA spying on Julian Assange and his visitors became public through a Spanish court case against a company, UC Global, and its director, David Morales. UC Global was hired by Ecuador in 2012 to provide security for its embassy in London. The CIA, the new lawsuit alleges, recruited UC Global in January 2017, with the help of the late casino billionaire and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, when Morales was at a gun convention in Las Vegas. Morales returned to Spain and, according to the lawsuit, told his employees that the company would now be operating in the big league and for the dark side with the CIA.

Donald Trump had been a big fan of Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign, after the site published thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton and members of her inner circle. WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks, Trump said in a speech in October. Then, in March, 2017, Wikileaks published Vault 7, leaked CIA information that the agency itself later admitted was the largest data loss in CIA history.

Shortly after the first tranche of Vault 7 documents was published, Mike Pompeo blasted Wikileaks in his first public speech as Trumps new CIA Director:

WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence serviceIt overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations. Its time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a nonstate hostile intelligence service.

Last year, Yahoo News exposed a 2017 CIA plot to kidnap and possibly kill Julian Assange while in the Ecuadorian embassy. Yahoo reported that the plot was discussed at the highest levels of the Trump administration.

Plots to assassinate a publisher, warrantless surveillance of private conversations and secret duplication of attorneys and journalists private electronic devices all echo the notoriously criminal conduct of the Nixon administration in the early 1970s.

Back then, the target was whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who leaked The Pentagon Papers, a secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that detailed the extent to which successive U.S. administrations lied to the public about the war. Dan Ellsberg was charged with espionage and faced life in prison.

President Nixons obsession with leaks led him to order the burglary of Ellbergs psychiatrists office, starting the chain of events that led to the Watergate scandal and Nixons resignation. When the presiding judge in Ellsbergs trial learned of the governments illegal conduct, he dismissed the case.

Fifty years later, First Amendment protections for publishers of government secrets, illegal CIA spying and more are before a federal judge again. Judge John Koeltl, as a young lawyer, served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Now presiding over this case, filed by journalists and Assanges attorneys, expect more CIA criminality to come to light. President Biden and his Justice Department should immediately drop all charges against Julian Assange.

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Assange Attorneys and Journalists Sue the CIA Over Spying - Democracy Now!

Gazprom began delivery of 700 million cubic meters (cm) of extra natural gas to Hungary, State Secretary Tamas Menczer announced on Facebook last weekend. This follows Foreign Minister Peter Szijjartos controversial trip to Moscow in July to request the gas over and above the long-term gas agreement signed last year for 4.5 billion cubic cm/y, or roughly half of Hungarys demand. With Western gas markets drying up, the Hungarian government became highly concerned about the winter and rushed to secure more gas from Moscow, despite the EUs consensus on reducing gas dependence on Russia. Menczer stated that in the first phase, until the end of August, 2.6 million cm of additional gas will arrive from the south via the Turkish Stream pipeline, and negotiations are already underway for September deliveries. It was not revealed how much the Hungarian government is paying for the gas.

Unsurprisingly, the government-controlled media this week launched vicious character attacks against Csaba Vasvari, a senior judge, after he criticised the governments approach towards the judiciary. The judge told The Observer: He and his colleagues on the bench have been witnessing external and internal influence attempts. He cited cases where court officials discussed firing or making life uncomfortable for judges who are too autonomous or had expressed concerns about nepotism when relatively unqualified friends or family members of high-ranking politicians were appointed to senior positions of the court system. The revelation is a massive blow to the Hungarian government, which is trying to convince the European Commission that it is not interfering in the judiciary as it pleads to unlock frozen EU funds. Among the attacks were that Vasvari served during the terror of the previous social-liberal government and sentenced innocent protesters to several years in prison. The government-affiliated daily Magyar Nemzet claimed that the paragraph containing this bit of info had been removed from his Wikipedia page in order to whitewash his reputation. In 2006, violent protests erupted following the leaked internal speech of then prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, who admitted he lied during the election campaign to secure victory. Right-wing media see the 2006 events as the original sin of the leftist government and proof they cant be trusted, and it is a typical strategy to associate people with the 2006 events to undermine their credibility.

Hungarys National Ambulance Service (OMSZ) announced it was conducting a pilot project for cycling ambulances. The electric bikes would be deployed primarily in cities, especially in areas with the most calls, such as Budapest. Tamas Kramarics, the first Hungarian paramedic on an e-bike, explained in a video that in England paramedics on bikes have been deployed for 20 years and help 17,000 people yearly. Nobody is going to substitute traditional ambulances with e-bikes, but all the necessary equipment to save lives can be transported on bikes, he says. Paramedics can apply voluntarily and receive extra pay for their e-bike shifts. Kramarics said he will mostly bike on the pedestrian streets of Budapest. The OMSZ confirmed the program will officially start in the spring of 2023.

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Democracy Digest: Paris Probes Babis while Spirit of Thatcher Lives On in Czechia - Balkan Insight

One of the most important races on the August ballot is the Democratic primary to decide who takes on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in November: Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried vs. Congressman Charlie Crist.

As the race goes down the home stretch, campaign donations have increasingly become an issue in the race. While both campaigns have hundreds of small-dollar donations, NBC 6 Investigators wanted to look at the major funders of both the candidates.

One of the most recent large donations was $100,000 from Michael Fernandez. In total, hes given Fried more than $400,000. Fernandez usually gives to Republican candidates; most notably supporting Jeb Bush or other opponents of then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primary for president.

Her Bold Move Action, a group supporting women candidates who support abortion access, donated $100,000 to Fried.

Fried has received several hundred thousand dollars from political committees commonly used by large sugar companies, public utilities, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and the big business advocacy arm the Associated Industries of Florida.

Education for All, Floridians for Economic Advancement, Floridians for a Stronger Democracy, Florida Alliance for Better Government, and other similarly titled committees are largely funded by Florida Power and Light and its parent company NextEra Energy, sugar company Florida Crystals and Associated Industries. Usually, the donations come in the form of $10,000 or $15,000 chunks. The most recent ones were in July.

The NBC 6 Investigators get results

The Crist-supporting VoteWater advocacy group earlier drew attention to the donations from the sugar companies. NBC 6 requested a comment from Frieds campaign and has not yet heard back.

Political committees are a way for individuals, corporations, unions, other interests to hide money so to speak. This is all legal under Florida law, said NBC 6 political analyst Carlos Curbelo.

Curbelo says big business groups donate to Fried for several reasons. First, companies usually donate to get the ear of their regulators and as commissioner of agriculture, Fried plays a key role in regulating big industry. Some of their donations came into Frieds political committee Florida Consumers First before she announced her run for governor.

They just know her because theyve had to interact with her over the last four years. So, a lot of times companies and individuals feel comfortable supporting someone they know, Curbelo said.

Second, many of these companies may dislike Crist more than they like Fried, and they want to make his life difficult. When he was the Republican attorney general and governor, Crist often clashed with FPL and big sugar companies.

Charlie Crist is a populist. And even when he was a Republican governor, he still had a strong populist streak, Curbelo said.

Representative Charlie Crist has raised more money in the race for governor. He got an early boost from transferring $185,000 from his campaign for U.S. Congress.

Just this month, Crist received a $500,000 donation from the American Federation of Teachers, the largest teachers union in the country. Local and state teachers unions have also supported Crists campaign financially.

Then wealthy liberal philanthropists Barbara Steifel and Francoise Haasch-Jones have also cut checks totaling several hundreds of dollars.

Curbelo says the donations show that the states Democratic establishment is backing Crist over Fried.

Charlie Crist has fully transitioned to being a solid blue democrat. Charlie Crist was a Republican. Then he became an independent. For a time, he was a fairly centrist Democrat. And now, hes got the full support of the Democratic establishment, Curbelo said.

Crist, however, does also have some political committee donations. NBC 6 Investigators found one group called Winning Florida run by Fort Lauderdale election attorney Jason Blank gave to both Crist and Fried. That organization is partially funded by Florida sugar and utility interests.

You can explore the candidates donations online at the secretary of states database for:

Nikki Fried and Frieds political committee

Charlie Crist and his political committee

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Here Are the Major Donors to Democratic Gov. Candidates Fried and Crist - NBC 6 South Florida