Parties mint millions from primary disputes

Jubilee Party appeals tribunal chairperson Faith Waigwa makes a ruling at the party headquaters in Nairobi. (Photo: Boniface Okendo/Standard)

Political parties are minting millions from thousands of nomination losers who have filed petitions challenging the results.

After raking in billions of shillings in nomination fees – parties had imposed varying application fees to clear candidates to contest various posts – they are now cashing in on disputes arising from the party elections.

Those filing petitions with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) appeals tribunal have to cough up Sh75,000.

The fee is lower for MCAs whose cases are being handled by county dispute tribunals.

The Orange party's tribunal, headed by lawyer Willis Otieno sitting in Nairobi, had by yesterday handled 30 appeals.

This amounts to Sh2.25 million.

Party website

For Jubilee Party, those with complaints are required to fill a form from the party's website and submit it to the headquarters with a Sh1,000 filing fee.

Faith Waigwa, the Jubilee Party appeals tribunal chairperson, said they had handled 508 cases by the deadline yesterday.

Initially, the parties were pocketing between Sh15,000 and Sh1 million from aspirants who wished to vie for the presidency, deputy presidency, governor, deputy governor, MP, senator and MCA.

After the nominations, some of which were shambolic and saw many sitting and aspiring politicians floored, the parties have now turned the losers into cash cows.

Wiper party is charging Sh10,000 for each appeal, while to lodge a complaint at the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal, one must part with Sh20,000.

The fees for appeals in Ford Kenya, Party of National Unity, Amani National Congress and Chama Cha Mashinani range from Sh10,000 to Sh50,000.

Those wishing to vie as independents must also pay for some services.

Search fees

In order to get a certificate of clearance from the Registrar of Political Parties to run as an independent, one is required to pay Sh500 in search fees for the symbol they want to use.

This is a hard time for politicians as those contesting the outcome of the nominations end up losing their appeals.

A number of them have taken their parties to court, seeking to have them compelled to pay back their nomination fees.

Other losers have resorted to beating up those who were in charge of their campaigns for doing a poor job.

Aspiring MCAs who paid Sh15,000 as nomination fees to Maendeleo Chap Chap have threatened take the party to court for failing to conduct nominations.

The party commissioned a survey by Infotrak and gave direct nomination certificates to those who emerged as favourites.