IEBC Reach A Memorandum With Jubilee To Conduct Its Party Primaries.
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| Hon. Raphael Tuju shakes hands with IEBC Chair Wafula Chebukati after meeting the party officials at Jubilee House, Pangani. |
An IEBC team
led by Chair Wafula Chebukati and CEO Ezra Chiloba met officials of Jubilee Party under secretariat head Hon.
Raphael Tuju at Jubilee House,
Pangani on Friday and engaged on how to handle their party nominations to be
held in March this year.
“We have had a meeting with Jubilee Party and we are
committed to delivering credible and fair elections. We have reached a
memorandum with them and also discussed the issue of impartiality,” said Chebukati
after the meeting.
Chebukati however complained that the extension of the mass
voter registration exercise by the courts was eating up into the IEBC budget but
he assured Kenyans that the voter register will be presented to the public and
parties for verification on May 9th.
“We will clean the voter register to remove dead voters and
present it to the public and parties for verification on May 9th,” explained
the IEBC boss.
Tuju praised
the polls team for a commendable job that had seen them remove certain doubts
in a section of Kenyans about the electoral process.
“We are delighted that the IEBC has been announcing the
results of the voter registration on a weekly basis. For the first time in this
country we know the exact number of registered voters per constituency (and) per
county. This removes some of the mysteries that surround the election process
in this country and it will help to democratise the electoral process,” said
Tuju.
He added that JP and the IEBC addressed issues regarding their
primaries where the electoral body agreed to help Jubilee party conduct free
and fair elections.
“We have the capacity of running party nominations. However,
we have addressed the issue of cleaning the register from our stand point so
that we can adequately plan for our own primaries. We have agreed to constitute a 6-man team
(3 from each side) to deliberate on the nitty gritty and iron out all the
logistics. We shall afterwards resolve the issue of funding the participation
of IEBC in our party nominations,”
said the former minister.
Tuju dismissed as
a fallacy by the opposition that Jubilee will rig the August elections.
“NASA is perpetuating falsehood impressions that IEBC is in an unholy alliance with Jubilee Party. It is wrong not unless the IEBC goes into cahoots
with us. Kenyans are today aware of the difference between an ecstatic,
full and exciting drama of a rally as opposed to the actual number of people
who are registered to vote. The biggest rally will not translate to the biggest
number of votes. It is those who actually register that determine election
results,” said Tuju.
Wherever they have held their rallies, the opposition has
perpetuated the narrative that the elections will be rigged in Jubilee’s
favour.
Meanwhile, Jubilee Party Interim County Officials from Nairobi, Kajiado, Kiambu counties are currently undergoing some capacity building workshop at the party HQ.
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