We won't defend you anymore, Jubilee Party tells IEBC team

President Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party has accused the electoral commission of favouring opposition strongholds in the distribution of registration kits in the ongoing voter listing.

The head of the party's secretariat Raphael Tuju on Friday said Raila Odinga-backed National Super Alliance (Nasa) areas had “255 extra machines”.

Mr Tuju said they had written to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) seeking answers on the “extra kits” and what they said was the commission's inability to defend itself against accusations from the Nasa brigade.

“Nasa/Cord areas have received a larger number of BVR machines and in our own computation, they have 255 extra machine," Mr Tuju said in a statement.

FORMULA

"We therefore request IEBC to explain the rationale that was used to arrive at the formula.”

The IEBC had, at the start of the voter registration last month, said the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits would be distributed according to the expected number of voters to be registered as well as the population around the registration centre.

In the distribution, the commission said, each county assembly ward would have a minimum of three kits and a maximum of 10.

“A total of 7,793 BVR kits will be deployed countrywide based on the county assembly ward size. In the MVR I, the Commission deployed 5,756 kits, which were not optimally utilised given the constraints of budget," the IEBC said then.

"The consequence was such that two kits ended up at one registration centre. This time round, a kit will serve one registration centre at a time."

NO DEFENCE

Mr Tuju, in the statement, also said Jubilee would no longer defend the electoral commission against attacks from the opposition, saying the team should stand up for themselves.

“We cannot be in the business of defending IEBC from Nasa when credibility of their impartiality is being undermined. They should stand up and defend themselves,” said Mr Tuju.

Mr Odinga has alleged massive fraud in the form of identity card duplications and use of non-existent ID numbers in the ongoing registration.

He has also alleged that underage children in Jubilee strongholds are being registered as voters.

FKE CALL

Meanwhile, the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) has asked its members to push their employees to register as voters in a full-blown search of the seemingly elusive target of six million new voters.

FKE on Friday said the registration was a civic duty that all Kenyans must embrace.

“This is our civic duty as Kenyans,” said FKE Executive Director Jacqueline Mugo.

She was speaking at the federation’s Waajiri House headquarters in Nairobi.

In its statement, FKE also said it would not allow what it said was incitement by politicians.

6M TARGET

“Any action that disturbs the stability and peace of Kenya, is costly to us all. It affects the image of the country and the economy at large,” Ms Mugo said.

The IEBC had last week asked politicians and other stakeholders to aid in the mobilisation of new voters.

“After 14 days of registering voters, preliminary data shows that a total of 1,539,879 Kenyans representing 53.94 percent of the Week II cumulative target have applied to be registered as voters,” the IEBC said in its weekly updates.

The agency added: “This represents 25 percent of the upper target of 6 million voters and 38.50 percent of the lower limit target of 4 million voters. This means that much work still needs to be done.”

In the distribution, the commission said, each county assembly ward will have a minimum of three kits and a maximum of 10 with a total of 7,793 kits deployed countrywide.

IEBC RESPONDS

But the IEBC quickly hit back at the Jubilee team, saying the statement was “was ill-intentioned and meant to discredit the commission.”

“When we started the voter registration campaign, we widely shared the formula of distribution of BVR kits. No one raised concerns. We have also indicated the efforts being made by the Commission to clean up the register,” Mr Andrew Limo, IEBC manager of media and communications, said in a statement.

Mr Limo added: “Instead of addressing the issues, the statement went further to profile officials of the IEBC in a nuanced ethnic sense and making an attempt to associate them with political groupings. We take great exception with any form of profiling that undermines the integrity of the commission, and more importantly, the values of our Constitution that we must hold so dear to our hearts.”