Raila urges CORD supporters to register as voters

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has urged his supporters to register as voters to give him a headstart in the 2017 General Election.

With eyes on the 2017 presidential race, Raila has already unveiled a website to engage supporters as he prepares another stab at the presidency.

But the CORD leader fears low voter registration, especially in his Western and Nyanza backyards, could deal a blow to his bid.

A recent opinion poll by Ipsos Synovate indicates that Western and Nyanza are trailing other regions in voter registration awareness in the country. In Western, where local leaders are plotting to register 6 million voters, the pollster said only 10 per cent of residents are aware of any ongoing voter registration in their locality since the 2013 elections.

And in Nyanza, only 17 per cent of residents are aware of the ongoing exercise, according to the survey.

Raila has now come out publicly to urge his supporters to get national identity cards and register as voters. Last weekend, during the burial of former Gem MP Argwings Kodhek’s wife, Joan, in Gem, Siaya County, Raila described the 2017 political battle as an epic duel.

Voter cards

“Current records indicate people from the Jubilee strongholds have registered for IDs and voter cards more than those from CORD zones. This should change because, as you all know, leadership is captured through votes,” Raila said.

The ODM leader is confident that a high voter turnout from his strongholds will give him a head-start in the race. As the voter registration campaign gains momentum in Raila’s ODM party, the initiative seems not to have picked up in Ford-Kenya and Wiper parties, both partners in CORD, a situation that could have led to the poor statistics. And although Raila has declared he will be in the 2017 presidential ballot, his colleagues in CORD, former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka (his running mate in the 2013 polls) and Senate Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula insist they, too, are in the race.

Indeed, an internal report released by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) last year during a post-mortem of the 2013 elections indicated that thousands of registered voters in CORD strongholds did not turn up on election day.

According to the report, out of the 2,058,753 voters who did not show up at the polling stations despite having registered, 204,616 were from Western region while 220,288 were from Nyanza.