Nominations will define Jubilee’s future

After the Jubilee Party merger behemoth, Kenya’s political landscape will change significantly. President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy President William Ruto’s vision of a united country will definitely tilt the way our political parties are managed.

With Jubilee Party’s inauguration, a new platform for political inclusion of key interest groups will have been created. This new party will be the most organised arena to express and merge our diversity as a country in an avenue that looks forward to a future of social-econo-political development.

Yes, we are in a multi party democracy. However, at no time was multi-partism envisaged to have parties whose only interests stretched just within a certain ethnic grouping or region. It was largely to give Kenyans their democratic rights and space to choose their political inclinations and express them freely.

Time is ripe for our nation to nurture political organisations with institutionalised democratic processes that affirm transparency and accountability and also allow the popular voice of the people to govern in line with our constitutional framework. Jubilee has not shied away from adopting an inclusive process which enabled participation of smaller political parties with the ultimate effect of allowing the beauty of Kenya’s diversity to speak in one voice rather than speaking in many inaudible voices.

This country needs parties with distinct ideals on political and economic emancipation for a period not less than two decades. Such parties ought to spend time and resources selling their agenda to Kenyans for them to make informed choices.

The new party’s future will, therefore, lie on how its structures will offer a level playing ground during the nominations for candidates who will carry its flags in the 2017 polls.

In majority of Jubilee’s strongholds, party primaries are the real election and as such, utmost care must be taken to give voters the fairest opportunity to choose their candidates.

The party must be protected from forces within and outside its ranks whose mission would be to derail efforts to stage credible nominations.

This weekend, the Opposition will watch as the ruling coalition unveils the biggest political machine since independence with unmatched capacity to stage a formidable show towards the 2017 elections.

Jubilee supporters will awaken to a new reality that it was never a mistake to have supported the coalition in 2013. Certainly, the Jubilee journey will not be cut short in 2017.

The writer is former secretary general of Jubilee Alliance Party