Parties begin to submit membership lists to IEBC

Political parties begin to submit their membership lists today to the election agency, a process that will end on March 19.

According to the revised the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) timelines, political parties will have to submit the names of candidates for party primaries to the commission from March 26 to April 5.

The commission will gazette the names of the candidates and the dates of the party primaries between March 30 and April 12.Political parties have between April 13 and 26 to conduct their nominations and should there be any disputes arising from the nominations, parties will have a 30-day window to solve them.

It has also emerged that at least 70 political parties and Opposition’s National Super Alliance (NASA) submitted their nomination rules to IEBC at the close of the deadline last week.

IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati said the commission was in the process of reviewing the nomination rules submitted by 69 political parties to ensure compliance with the prescribed guidelines.

“The Commission published a notice requiring political parties to submit nomination rules by March 2, 2017. Political parties are further reminded to submit their membership lists on or before March 19,” said Mr Chebukati.

Further, The Standard established that out of the 75 registered political parties, 69 complied with the electoral agency’s requirement and are now free to participate in the August polls. Among those that complied are Jubilee Party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), Wiper Democratic Movement (WDM), Maendeleo Chap Chap (MCC), Ford Kenya, Amani National Congress (ANC) and Federal Party of Kenya.

Others are Kenya African National Union, Alternative Leadership Party of Kenya, Party of National Unity, Movement for Democracy and Growth and Liberal Democratic Party.

As of March 2, only one coalition, NASA, had submitted their nomination rules that they would use in the event that they hold joint nominations.

And now IEBC will be waiting for the parties to conduct their primaries and furnish the agency with the list of nominees to participate in the August polls.

The Jubilee Party has been holding strategy meetings to zone the country in preparation for the upcoming nomination.

Jubilee’s Director of Communications Albert Memusi said the party’s National Elections Board (NEB) would meet today to plan when the party will commence the nomination exercise.

He indicated that should the electoral agency admit the party’s nomination rules, they would proceed to conduct party primaries as stipulated in the timelines.

ODM’s party chairman John Mbadi (Suba) said they would soon gazette polling stations and publish the names of all aspirants.

With the submission of the nomination rules to the electoral agency, now focus shifts to the political parties which, according to the IEBC timelines, are supposed to conduct their nominations between April 13 and 26.

“As a party, we have received all the applications and we have proposed to the National Elections Board to increase the number of polling stations and publish the names of all the aspirants,” said Mr Mbadi.

According to Mbadi, the party will announce its candidates in areas categorised as Zone C for the August polls.

The party has categorised Kiambu, Murang’a, Kirinyaga, Tharaka Nithi, Laikipia, Nyandarua, Nyeri, Meru, Nandi, Marakwet, Baringo and West Pokot Counties as Zone C, areas where they stand little chance of winning in any election.

Executive Director Oduor Ong’wen said although the party was to start its primaries in areas categorized as Zone A on February 28, the discussions by the NASA’s National Coordinating Committee (NCC) on conducting joint nominations slowed down the pace.

“We didn’t envisage a scenario of NASA but because we are committed in the coalition, we must give a chance for them to finalise the negotiations. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” said Oduor.

His counterpart from Wiper Dr Jared Siso explained that the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) had been updated by the National Elections Board on the ongoing aspirants application, which will end on March 11.