Every eligible citizen must register to vote in 2017 poll

Universal suffrage — the totality of the right to vote and opportunities to vote in the establishment of any government — is at the very core of democracy. Without it, democracy would be hollow. But the right to vote would be meaningless if the citizens who are eligible to vote are not registered voters.

Beginning tomorrow, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will roll out a mass voter registration exercise across the entire country. This all-important exercise is scheduled to go on until March 15. And the next time this exercise will take place will be next year before the General Election.

Politicians have taken advantage of every encounter with the masses to appeal to “their people” to turn out in large numbers and register as voters.

The clergy have used places of worship to call out the eligible faithful to register in large numbers.

In tertiary institutions, the message to young people is the same; go out and register as voters. The calls for mass registration may necessarily be motivated by different objectives. For some it is an opportunity to build a strong base of loyal voters to help them ascend to or retain political office.

For others, the calls are premised on a genuine desire to have as many Kenyans as possible participate in determining the country’s leadership through the ballot.

Whatever the motivation is, there is no denying that now is the time for every Kenyan to get ready to participate in the democratic process of deciding the calibre of leaders at the national and county levels of government in the 2017 General Elections.

And so we add our voices to the calls for mass registration of voters. This exercise is crucial for the deepening of our democracy and therefore the IEBC must make sure that no effort or expense is spared to return the most credible results from the exercise.

Initially there were fears that the budgetary allocation from the exchequer to the electoral body to undertake this exercise was grossly insufficient. But the good news is that development partners have come out strongly to support the exercise by contributing funds.

The least that the IEBC can do is to ensure they are seen to be transparent in the allocation of the Biometric Voter Registration kits across the country. Where there are perceptions of skewed allocations, the electoral body should be proactive in explaining every situation so as to ride on the buy-in of as many stakeholders as possible throughout the registration exercise.

Chances are that if all stakeholders are satisfied in the registration exercise, they would also be satisfied in the actual voting process. The opposite is also true. If a significant number of stakeholders are not satisfied with the voter registration exercise, chances are that they would not accept the outcome of the election and especially if the said outcome is not victory for them.

Kenyan elections are known to be very emotive, the more reason why IEBC must invest in both the process and outcome of the electioneering process. It begins with voter registration, compiling of the master voters’ register, the management of the actual voting and then the tallying process of the votes cast.

For these processes to succeed at every stage and win the support of the stakeholders, the electoral body needs to carry out effective civic education. Kenyans need to understand the processes, their responsibilities in the electioneering process as well as their rights. And so even as the country embarks on the registration exercise, equal attention should be paid to the need to educate the Kenyan public on matters to do with elections. The IEBC cannot afford to leave the civic education function in the hands of the political class because they would skew crucial information to extract undue advantage in the ballot against competitors.

We hope that by the close of business on March 15 when the first round of mass voter registration exercise comes to an end, IEBC will have registered more than the four million new voters they are targeting.