History as parties enlist 24m ahead of nominations
Political parties managed to register the highest number of members in the country since the advent of multiparty politics.
As at March 26, the deadline for registering members ahead of the August 9 General Election, more than 24 million Kenyans had registered as members of parties.
Men outnumbered women 2 to 1 with 15,363,657 men registering while 8,642,057 women were listed in the 82 outfits that had submitted their registers for certification.
“The Office of the Registrar of Political Parties appreciates political parties and individual members for processing their membership accordingly within the legal timelines,” said the Registrar Anne Nderitu (pictured) in a press statement yesterday.
Nderitu said her office will take seven days to certify the membership after which she will hand over the certified party membership register to the IEBC before April 9.
The registrar reminded parties to make public their nomination particulars on their websites.
The details to be made public include the method of nominations, whether direct, where members pick the candidates, or indirect where parties conduct interviews or delegate settle on the preferred flag bearer. Also to be made public are the dates of nomination and the venue and also the list of aspirants who will take part in the exercise.
As a result of the certification process the data hosting platform will be shut for the seven days to allow the clean-up of the register. Members who are not Kenyans or who are minors will be knocked out of the register. Equally, if one has joined more than one party then the membership will be annulled.
Parties will however, continue registering members after the seven days though new ones will not be certified in the register to be handed over to the IEBC.
The cleanup exercise also gives room to candidates who wish to vie as independents as they are not supposed to be members of any party by May 2.
Ms Nderitu said her office is in the process of registering independents for the elections and that As at March 28 912 aspirants had applied to be considered as independent candidates with 650 getting the green light.
“The office is at the final stages of developing an independent candidates Management System that will supplement the manual process. Persons who have already submitted their applications are advised not to reapply when the system is up and running,” she said.
The system will enable aspirants to submit their requests for clearance letters and symbols after they pay Sh500. It will make it easy for the contestants unlike in the past when they had to physically go to the Registrar’s office to pick them.
While reminding parties of the critical timelines in the run-up to the elections Nderitu said her office is in the process of recruiting monitors at the county and constituency levels who will trail parties to ensure compliance with the law and record any malfeasance that could warrant penalties.
