Kalonzo to sensitise people on voter registration

Wiper Democratic Movement leader Kalonzo Musyoka will on Monday embark on a series of campaign roadshows in Ukambani and Kisii counties to sensitise people on voter registration.

Mr Musyoka first heads to his political backyards of Machakos and Kitui counties on Monday where he will address several meetings to re-energise the Opposition strongholds to register in large numbers.

According to his press secretary Dennis Kavisu, the former Cord co-principal will then travel to Narok, Kisii and Nyamira counties later in the week, in phase one of his campaign tours expected to be concluded before the weekend.

“Preparations for the tours are in top gear. The party leader met 200 Wiper party grassroots leaders from Kisii and Nyamira and commissioned them to knock on every door and mobilise people ahead of his rallies,” Mr Kavisu said.

The Kisii delegation, led by his party’s Borabu MP Ben Momanyi and governor aspirants Lumumba Nyaberi (Kisii) and former High Court Judge David Onyancha (Nyamira), pledged to comb the region to drive the voter registration message.

His tours are part of a wide plan by the top Cord leadership to tour the entire country urging their supporters to utilise the short period of the second mass voter registration exercise to boost their political support base.

Mr Kavisu said the Wiper leader will not only urge the unregistered people to come out and get enlisted but also for all Kenyans to verify the accuracy of their voter registration details with IEBC officials.

He will also be urging supporters living and working in major towns to register to vote in those areas instead of travelling to their home counties because this will enable the Opposition coalition flagbearer achieve the required 25 per cent votes in at least 24 counties.  

ELECT LEADERS

“It does not make sense to travel back home to register as a voter within this short period. It would be crucial for our supporters to stick where they are because the people back home have sufficient numbers to elect their leaders,” Mr Kavisu explained.

The emphasis on confirming the correctness of one’s voter registration details was prompted by the exposé that the national Identity Card of the Wiper leader himself had been used to register somebody else as a voter.

Mr Musyoka discovered the anomaly when he visited a voter registration centre at Wagberi Primary School in Wajir East Constituency during his tour of Wajir County last week.

According to the IEBC voter register seen by the Nation, Mr Musyoka’s ID number is listed as belonging to one Salome Wanjiru Njoroge, born in 1993.

In a telephone interview, Mr Musyoka said he decided to verify the accuracy of his registration details out of curiosity but was shocked to find that if elections were held today, he would not have participated.

He said the revelation was clear evidence that the IEBC voters roll had errors which could easily be used to rig the forthcoming elections by locking out legitimately registered voters from casting their votes.

Mr Musyoka said the mix-up in the names means many people may have been registered as voters using fake ID cards.

“It is now clear what is happening across the country. This explains why the registrar of persons has been retained in office several years after attaining retirement age,” the Wiper leader said.

“We have a comprehensive list of similar incidents of double ID registration across the country that we will be tabling.”