NAIROBI, Kenya May 17 – The number of nomination disputes within political parties has significantly reduced this year as compared to last year, Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu has announced.
Nderitu mentioned that despite the challenges that have marred the nomination exercise in 2022 that cuts across all political parties, there has been a great change.
“We have 306 disputes filed in Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT) immediately after nominations and in IEBC it was 300 or so and in total we have over 600 disputes. Currently, the last I checked we around 115 disputes filed at PPDT which shows that parties have been able to handle disputes internally,” she said.
The Registrar of Political Parties pointed out that political parties must be strengenthed to enable them handle disputes internally before they are lodged to the other resolution mechanism.
“When we strengthen the party, then the party as an institution should be able to handle its own issues,” Nderitu noted.
There were 115 disputes filed arising from party primaries in the Deputy President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party, in last week’s nominations.
The party’s Electoral and Nomination Dispute Resolution Committee said out of the 115 disputes, 94 were for members of County Assemblies and 34 of the cases were dismissed, results from 24 wards nullified and there was a recount in four wards.