IEBC extends registering of aspirants as independents

The electoral commission has offered a lifeline to the ever-growing list of independent candidates after it rescinded its earlier decision to close their applications by yesterday and said they will be cleared up to Monday.

The announcement came after its administrative deadline of yesterday evening for submission of the candidates’ unique symbols seemed to lock out thousands of aspirants who want to run as independents.

“We will process requests from independent candidates until midnight on May 8,” said IEBC commissioner Roselyne Kwamboka.

INCREASING POPULARITY
This comes as the Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u said that more than 1,500 aspirants have been cleared to run as independent candidates.

Mrs Ndung’u’s office has since last week seen long queues of aspirants who either lost the nominations or want to run independently.

Yesterday, many of those who had not been cleared claimed they had spent days there without getting the services they needed and accused the office of unpreparedness and incompetence.

While she could not confirm the exact number of those who had applied or been cleared as the total number has not been tabulated, Mrs Ndung’u said that at the close of last week, her office estimates that about 2,000 applications had been sent.

“We also received an additional 700 applications yesterday but today we have received less than 100,” she said.

ADEQUATE RESOURCES
She also said that of these, about 1,500 had been cleared but this figure is also an estimate and the number is expected to go up.

Mrs Sheila Wanjiku Mungai, who is seeking the Nakuru County woman rep position, said the registrar had been overwhelmed by the numbers of those wanting to be independent candidates.

“There are a few people handling a very large number of aspirants, the process is lengthy and I have waited for almost three days but I have not received any service” she said.

Duncan Oboyo, who is vying to be MCA in Kabouch ward in Homa Bay County, was left wondering whether IEBC has the capacity or sufficient budget to handle the huge numbers of candidates who will be on the ballot come August 8.

His sentiments were shared by other aspirants who had not been cleared.

ADDITIONAL CLERKS
Mr Andrew Limo, the communications officer at IEBC, however dispelled the fears, saying the cost is taken care of by the IEBC budget.

“If we are going to add a candidate to a ballot paper and provide a place to tick and the ballots have not been printed yet, this means any overhead in our budget can accommodate that,” said Mr Limo.

He also said IEBC is not going to hire additional clerks to handle independent candidates as the infrastructure is already in place to handle the elections.