24.5mn Kenyans registered in the various political parties – Nderitu

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 29 – The Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu says 24.5 million Kenyans have been registered in the eighty-two political parties ahead of the August elections.

Nderitu made the announcement on Tuesday during a press conference after the receipt of the party membership list by last Saturday.

“We have 24,571,400 registered members in political parties in the country. In the list 15 million are male while 8.6 M are female. 82 political parties have submitted their lists,” she said.

Nderitu stated that the political parties’ membership will be certified by April 2, ahead of the primaries.

She stated that withing seven days the register of political parties is expected to have concluded the certification and present the list to Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in readiness for nominations.

“The deadline for submission of certified party membership register to IEBC is 9th April,” she said.

As of March 28, 912 independent candidates had manually applied for clearance with 650 applications having so far been cleared.

In the verification process, the aspirants lists submitted will be verified against the membership register to ascertain they are members of the respective parties.

The registrar of political parties will also certify person in the membership list to ensure they are not members of more than one political party.

“Emerging administrative concerns that emanate from the verification will be handled on a case-by-case basis with the concerned political party,” Nderitu said.

In the next 7 days the Integrated political party’s management system will be closed to manage political parties’ records.

However, parties are at liberty to continue recruitment of eligible party members using various manual method, although they will not be certified to participate in the activities of the party in the 2022 polls.

“Nothing in law prohibits Kenyans to register as members of a party. Those registered after 26^th are not expected to participate in the parties’ activities in the next general elections,” Nderitu said.