Lessons from recent fiasco surrounding ongoing party primaries

Much has been said about the role of political parties in the democratisation of our society. Going by the events we have seen over the last few weeks, one cannot definitively say that the parties are accountable to the law, to their supporters, or to the basic fundamentals of democracy.

At the start of the process, ODM leader Raila Odinga is on record as asking IEBC to keep off their affairs. Raila further says they will not take orders from the commission on when they will conduct their nominations.

The chair was giving guidelines on the legal procedure, saying ODM could begin their nominations on the 12th after the gazetting of aspirants as required by law.

On the other end, Jubilee party leader held a press conference the day before their nomination exercise kicked off assuring members and supporters of a free, fair and most importantly, smooth process.

On the day of party nominations, Raphael Tuju- Jubilee party Secretary General, kept insisting that all was well and that voting was ongoing despite contrary reports on ground.

He kept alluding to 8 helicopters that were on stand by to distribute poll materials, yet not one was spotted in all areas hit with ballot material short supply.

Gruntled, the party leader apologised to his supporters, introducing new semantics into our political lingo, under preparedness rather than unpreparedness- a much higher voter turnout than they expected. Never mind that Jubilee Party is a merger of 13 political parties, all with loyal supporters and members.

On both sides of the political divide, aspirants have complained about favoured candidates, mix up of ballot materials, delay of the voting process, names missing from the voters’ list and even debates over which list to use.

Many are using the IEBC list, which does not distinguish party members. Never mind that they are using a 2013 list which is more than 4 years old, not up-to-date and whose integrity was itself the subject of debate in 2013.

Do the parties have a list of their own members? One that is accurate and up-to-date? All of these aforementioned issues with party primaries, the forerunner to the general elections suggest that all is neither well with our politial parties nor with our democratic system.

The flaws witnessed in the parties’ preparations for this exercise makes one wonder whether they intend to be democratic at all. Further, they rob the parties of the pedestal on which to criticise IEBC. They also make a mockery of the multi party system we fought so hard for, only to make the mlolongo system look like a viable option!

For true democracy to be achieved, these parties must work harder in the five years between elections, to strengthen their structures and systems.