Jubilee in crisis over use of smart cards in party nominations

Margaret Wanjiru, Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant

Tuju says party will soon carry out audits and stakeholder consultations over the matter, writes MOSES NYAMORI

Margaret Wanjiru, Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant

I would recommend that we do not use the smart cards in the forthcoming primaries.

One of the reasons is that the cards have not been made available to all party members. The distribution has not been done well and on time.

We have also not been guaranteed that the cards are not being manufactured in River Road. What are the security features? Nobody is telling us how unique the cards are. So anybody could be holding the cards while they are not Jubilee supporters. It will be difficult to tell between a genuine and fake card.

In the end, we may end up blocking some of our supporters from participating in party primaries.

We do not have time to plug the gap and the only solution is not to use the cards in the nominations. There are reports that we lost cards worth Sh2 million. Where are the cards and who is using them? These cards can also be used to infiltrate our processes.

The party must come up with other means of ensuring our processes are not infiltrated.

The issue is quite complex and must be addressed by the party.

We need a structured way of issuing the cards, not what is going on where people have no understanding of the cards.

The claims that only one community is being given the cards is unfortunate. There is no way we can allow one community to participate in nominations. It is not acceptable. Nairobi is a cosmopolitan county and we must embrace everybody in our party.

People will say you did nomination as a community why do you need us in the General Election? We will be accused as a party.

Raphael Tuju, Jubilee Secretary General

Jubilee Party has received several questions from aspirants with respect to the membership cards. Some of the issues being raised are whether the cards would lock out some from participating in our primaries.

Others have also raised the issue of the distribution and availability of the cards. As part of our resolve to have a credible process, we are currently in the process of establishing county election boards (CEBs), which will work with the National Election Board (NEB) to ensure free and fair nomination processes across the country.

The election board will soon be carrying out audits and stakeholder consultation over the matter as part of coming up with a resolution ahead of our nominations.

The board will thereafter announce and publish the details of use of the membership cards and especially in those areas where such use will be compulsory after conclusion of the exercise they are currently involved in.

We, therefore, want to tell our members to wait for a proper communique that will be released by the NEB from the Jubilee secretariat concerning the use of the cards in our primaries.

Those claiming to give clarification of how and where nominations will be carried out are, therefore false and should be ignored.

The party will submit the party membership list to the Registrar of Political Parties by the deadline of March 26. The party has a membership register which currently stands at more than 7.5 million.