Registration of voters key to fair polls

Any attempt to derail the electoral process in 2017 must be resisted by Kenyans of good will. Calls by the Opposition that registration of voters scheduled for next month, be stopped is yet another sideshow meant to hoodwink their supporters that they lose elections unfairly. Ironically, I think the Opposition should grab this opportunity to boost their supporters’ base by going overdrive to recruit new voters. Calls that have the risk of breeding voter apathy can only be to their detriment. I submit that voter registration must not be stopped. While CORD is busy nit-picking just to give credence to their old obsession with rigged elections, we in Jubilee will be pressurising the government to hasten issuance of Identity Cards (ID) to youths across the country.

Statistics on the list of new ID holders as at July last year reinforces the fact that our youth need serious mobilisation to acquire IDs. According to the data, Jubilee strongholds are trailing CORD areas in this drive even though Rift Valley leads with 460,417 new ID holders. Nyanza, for example, got 304,965 new ID holders followed by Western at 285,582 compared to central Kenya’s 222,683. Others are Coast (215,912), Eastern (147,995), Nairobi (126,340) and North Eastern (28,614). These figures aren’t exhaustive and they call for urgent mobilisation by political leaders in their backyards. Registering as a Kenyan is one thing and registering as a voter is a completely different matter. Further, participating in the election, having been registered as a voter, doesn’t necessarily fall in place without a thorough campaign.