Go and deliver more voters, Cord governors told after meeting with Raila

Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) leaders have challenged governors affiliated with the coalition to push for high voter registration in their regions as the mass exercise kicked off countrywide on Monday.

The governors were asked to dedicate cash and youth to comb through villages and go door to door to ensure every eligible Kenyan registers as a voter before the exercise ends.

Cord leaders Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula addressed the governors during the Sunday night-long meeting at Kisumu’s Acacia hotel.

Most of the governors arrived on Sunday evening and hurriedly left the hotel on Monday morning without addressing the media.

SKEWED ALLOCATION

But speaking to journalists at Kisumu’s Jomo Kenyatta Grounds after inspecting the registration, Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka accused the electoral commission of skewed allocation of voter listing equipment. The Opposition chiefs said they would seek audience with the polls team over the matter.

They also demanded that the 30-day registration period be extended by a month.

“We have looked at the way they are distributing the BVR kits and is skewed in favour of certain regions. We want to see fairness. The commission should use population instead of area size as the criteria for the distribution. They are not registering land,” Mr Odinga said.

“Voter registration is a constitutional requirement and the IEBC has no excuse over cash. We urge Parliament to take the opportunity to provide funding to the commission when they discuss supplementary budgets next month,” he added.

The commission has been consistently crying out over lack of cash, most recently for the verification of Okoa Kenya signatures.
WANT JUSTICE

Mr Musyoka said the gap of about four million unregistered voters can only be sealed by a balanced distribution of the kits.

“We want justice to be done to Kenyans who will register as voters. The issue of one clerk registering more than 100 voters a day is not proper,” Mr Musyoka said.

“The commission must prepare to take full responsibility for the skewed distribution of BVR kits and its consequences today and in future,” they said in a statement.

“This amounts to plans to rig elections for Jubilee against the wishes and expectations of Kenyans,” they said.

Mr Musyoka asked election officials to clarify to Kenyans that those who may have lost their voter cards, can use national identity cards to cast their ballots. .

The thinking in Cord, according to those who attended the meeting, is that an additional four million voters will help the Coalition counter Jubilee’s “tyranny of numbers” in the election next year.

“It was resolved that the governors will go all out to help people register as voters in the on-going voter registration exercise while the Opposition coalition principals seek answers and redress from IEBC on distribution of BVR kits,” said a statement released to media after the meeting.

The governors were also asked to ensure that Cord supporters turn out to vote out the Jubilee coalition in the next election.
TEAM UP WITH TEACHERS
The primary target of the governors would be colleges and secondary schools where they were advised to team up with teachers’ unions to register eligible students.

“We had a common understanding that devolution was under threat. The idea for us is to get the numbers of voters in the Cord counties so that the Opposition forms the next government,” said one of the governors.

Mr Wetang'ula, the Ford Kenya leader, asked the registrar of persons to speed up the issuing of national identity cards.

“There are many people who have been holding waiting cards since June last year. They must now be issued with their IDs. Those IDs that were sent to various regional administrators should be delivered to the owners,” said the Bungoma senator.

“We want to see fairness. The process should not be used to disenfranchise certain areas while pampering other areas by giving them more personnel and kits,” he added.

TRANSFORM LIVES

During the Cord governors’ summit, Mr Odinga warned the county chiefs against corruption and asked them to explore innovative ways of raising revenues to ease the tax burden on Kenyans.

“Let us leave the task of picking money from people’s pockets to our national government that has clearly lost its way and is on its way out. As Cord governors, you must not join Jubilee in its lap of dishonour and defeat,” he said.

It was also pointed out that the Cord governors represent a chunk of the previously marginalized regions and must, therefore, use the devolved funds to transform the lives of people in those areas.

These include Turkana, Marsabit, Tana River, Mombasa, Kilifi, Kwale, Siaya, Kitui, Makueni and Garissa.

Places like Turkana and much of the Coast, according to Mr Odinga, were long considered good-for-nothing regions that were a burden to Kenya and had to wait for goodies to trickle down from the so-called high-potential areas such as central Kenya and parts of the Rift Valley.