Embakasi East MP Paul Ongili alias Babu Owino has started efforts to reintroduce the popular vote system returns to universities when they hold elections.
The legislator was the president of the former Nairobi University Students, called SONU (Student Organization of Nairobi University) when the popular vote system was still in effect.
"Today I presented my submission to the Education Committee to amend the University Act to allow University Students to Elect leaders of their choice through the Universal suffrage system. As we all know, democracies and built on nothing for us without us principle (sic)," read a statement by the MP on Twitter.
The Universities Amendment Act was signed in to law by President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2016. The Act resulted in a change in student leadership structure and the election process, that has seen student leaders being elected by delegates as opposed to the former process which allowed the popular vote.
This was done with the aim of bringing sanity into universities elections which have always been marred by violence and chaos.
In extreme cases, some students end up losing their lives while others are left maimed.
The petition by the MP now seeks to reverse the election to a popular system where students could elect their own leaders directly rather than through the delegates.