Electoral agency, parties registrar to blame for lawless nominations

The chaotic start to Jubilee primaries should serve as an embarrassment and reality check for an outfit that likes touting the professional and management skills of its officials and staff.

It is also a sober reminder that a ‘ruling party’ with the advantages of funds and access to public administration and security machinery, is no more capable than the resource-starved opposition of running credible internal polls.

Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju has been the man on the spot over the flawed nominations, but attention was also turning to President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, who were facing appeals for intervention from angry aspirants.

LOGISTICAL HURDLES
If the ODM exercise that began a week earlier was a study in chaos and mismanagement, Jubilee which had been sniggering at the ineptitude displayed by a rival might just have received its comeuppance.

To be fair, a nomination of such magnitude is no easy task.

It presents logistical challenges and requires vast resources in recruitment and deployment of officers, as well printing and distributing materials, onto managing the voting, counting and tabulating numbers.

It follows that the bigger a party, the more aspirants it will have, the more competitive the polls, the more expensive and complicated the nominations and the more room for mistakes.

It might thus be instructive that it is only parties that had national nominations that have generated the most negative publicity.

SUCCESSFUL PRIMARIES
Incomplete, data from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission showed that Jubilee had the most number of aspirants vying for MCA, National Assembly, Senate and governor. The list was not limited to party strongholds.

The only other party attempting a nationwide exercise was ODM, but it had the bulk of aspirants concentrated in its strongholds.

ODM’s partners in the National Super Alliance — Wiper Democratic Movement, Ford-K, Amani National Congress and Chama Cha Mashinani — attracted little attention with their nominations.

They largely restricted themselves to, or attracted aspirants only within their regional strongholds or to limited other areas.

In many cases, the smaller outfits, including ‘Jubilee friendly’ ones such as Narc-K, Maendeleo Chap Chap and PNU, or the myriad briefcase and handbag parties waiting to reap at election time, have dispensed with primaries altogether, dishing out nomination to whoever is first to pay a hefty fee.

The reality hitting home is that no Kenyan party has the resources and organisational skills to hold successful primaries.

MULTI-PARTY
This phenomenon can be traced to the return of the multi-party system in 1992 when outfits were left to manage their nominations, while the Electoral Commission was limited to the main polls.

During the de facto and de jure one-party system between 1969 and 1992, in theory at least, nominations were officially part of the national system.

They were managed by the Electoral Commission with participation of the entire State administrative and security machinery.

Primaries became a different ball game with the return of the multi-party system.

Framers of the Constitution recognised the difficulties parties faced and created an opening for IEBC to be called in to run nominations.

Jubilee, in the run-up to the 2017 elections, seemed to admit that it was ill-equipped to manage its primaries, and thus tried to take advantage of the proviso.

The problem was that it was trying to arm-twist the agency to use public funds on the nominations.

DEMOCRATIC CULTURE
IEBC turned down the demand, arguing that there was no budgetary provision.

It also said it had not been given adequate time to plan and conduct the exercise.

Then there was the question of what would happen if other parties demanded similar treatment.

IEBC would be overstretched at a time its focus was on the General Elections. Jubilee had no choice but to manage its primaries.

The chaos is indicative of the disorganisation and lack of democratic culture with Kenyan systems.

Institutions meant to regulate operations of the outfits, notably the IEBC and the Registrar of Political Parties, have largely chosen the hands-off approach.

IEBC has allowed parties to ignore rules, guidelines and timelines it issues as part of the electoral timetable.

The registrar has adopted a similarly nonchalant attitude when parties ignore statutory requirements such as filing of annual returns and holding conventions and elections.

POLITICAL MUSCLE
The result is a lawless culture, seen most glaringly during polls when outcomes are largely determined by thuggery, violence and undemocratic practices.
The example undemocratic culture is usually seen from the top: In Jubilee, there was no invitation for interested persons who might want the presidential nomination.

Party ‘owners’ simply settled on President Kenyatta for 2017 and went further to Mr Ruto for 2022.

In Nasa, there has not even been thought of a democracy to settle on a flag-bearer, leaving it to the discretion of the five principals.

The same was evident within the opposition alliance constituent parties where the issue of presidential nomination is not contestable.

Little wonder then that further down the ranks it is not votes, but muscle, that often carries the day.

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