Jubilee hires 20,000 clerks to manage its nominations

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party has hired 20,000 clerks to conduct its high-stakes nominations for all elective seats in a single day.

After failing to have the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) manage its primaries, the party is developing a raft of measures that it says will guarantee a fair poll for its members on April 21.

The party is recruiting over 20,000 clerks who will be deployed to man the process backed by hundreds of volunteers.

“If the template you are using in all the counties is the same, what stops you from rolling it out in the nominations in a single day?” asked the party’s secretary-general Raphael Tuju in defence of the decision.

The Jubilee Party nominations and those of Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) — which together control over 75 per cent of all elective seats in the country — will be hard-fought, with a win in their strongholds almost guaranteeing victory in the August 8 General Election.

ODM, one of the many parties that have chosen to phase out its primaries, will hold the polls from this Friday to April 22.

PLACED HIGH PREMIUM

Sources in Jubilee said President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto have placed a high premium on the nominations, insisting that they will not favour any of their allies in the primaries.

“I will not interfere at all with the Jubilee nominations. That, I promise. We want the people to decide,” President Kenyatta said in an interview recently.

The party leadership met President Kenyatta on Friday at State House before heading for a weekend retreat in Naivasha.

“We want to leave nothing to chance. We are already printing ballot papers after we asked aspirants to confirm their details. We will start distributing them by April 15,” said Mr Tuju.

Last week, the party shunned the mandatory use of the much-touted smart card, only requiring those who will take part in the nominations to be members of the party.

On Sunday, Mr Tuju also revealed that the party had benefited from technical advice by the IEBC, adding: “We want to do these nominations our way and depending on the technical advice by the IEBC, we hope to get it right.”

“We have assessed the situation and understand that if we do it in one day, we minimise the chances of one county contaminating the other,” said Mr Tuju.

He said the polling stations would be merged only in consultation with aspirants and the county election boards, and dismissed claims that doing the nominations on one day would stretch the party’s capacity.

“We have county election boards and regional coordinators all reporting to one National Elections Board. We will open the polling stations at 6am to 6pm, and we do not foresee us locking anyone out,” said Mr Tuju.

The Appeals Tribunal and disciplinary committee would be on stand-by to resolve disputes and address indiscipline, he added.