Ag. Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u said all registered parties had beaten the Wednesday deadline. Photo/ FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 17 – All registered Political parties have beaten Wednesday’s deadline of submitting election and nomination rules.
According to acting Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u, only those who had amended the rules submitted them close to the deadline.
Parties that would have failed to beat the deadline risked being barred from conducting nominations for next year’s general election.
Ndung’u said: “As par my records, all political parties have complied with the submission deadline. These are rules that will guide parties during the primaries and those without rules are not allowed to undertake nominations because they will have no authorised guidelines.”
Ndung’u said that parties that still have inconsistencies on information regarding their members will have to tidy up the lists before the nominations.
She said that although the process of cleaning lists has been ongoing, no party has gone below the requirements in membership.
“When we receive complaints over registration from members of the public, we write to the parties so that they correct the anomalies within 90 days. Only willing members of political parties will remain members,” she explained.
The National Alliance (TNA) and the New Vision Party submitted their rules to the Registrar moments after midday on Wednesday.
TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja said that the party’s rules are progressive as they establish structures in devolved government units and that they are friendly to the youth and other disadvantaged groups.
“These rules have come up as a result of a consultative process; we had to take all our aspirants through the rules last week so that they endorse them. The rules underscore our commitment as a party to have free and fair nomination processes,” said Sakaja, boasting that the nominations expected to be conducted on December 10 will be pace setting in the political arena.
TNA has also set up a young aspirants’ fund to support the campaigns of candidates aged between 18 and 25 years who make it through the nomination process.
Sakaja said that the party will embark on a nationwide civic education campaign to make sure that all the aspirants are grilled on the rules.
Other parties that submitted amended rules on Wednesday were the United Republican Party (URP) and the United Democratic Forum (UDF).
UDF in a statement later said that their purpose of amending the rules was to incorporate provisions for both universal suffrage and collegial systems of nominating party candidates.
The party at the same time said that it wanted to devolve the party’s nomination rules and regulations to the grassroots so as to promote a democratic, accountable, transparent party electoral mode for the nomination.
The UDF rules have mandated the parties National Executive Committee to vet candidates to ensure that they meet all the conditions set out in legislation.
“The party’s National Executive Committees shall be responsible for ensuring that a party member seeking for nomination for any of the positions meets the compliance requirements set by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission before accepting the nomination of the party member to contest on the party ticket,” read the rules in part.
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