Little known law that could spring surprise for big guns

By Wainaina Ndung’u

A little-known legal provision has the potential to throw the next General Election into disarray.

If a provision in the Political Parties Act is enforced, thousands of politicians across the country, including key political figures, would be barred from contesting in the elections.

The Registrar of Political Parties, Lucy Ndung’u, has warned that all politicians eyeing elective positions in 2012 must ensure that they have revoked — in writing — previous membership to political parties other than the one on whose ticket they wish to contest.

The Constitution requires a Presidential candidate to be supported by at least 2,000 registered voters from half of the counties while a candidate for Senator and Women Representative must each have at least 2,000 registered voters from their county.

Those for MP must have support of 1,000 registered voters in their constituency.

The county Governor appears to have it easier because he or she is only required to fulfil the same requirement as a member of the county assembly who only requires the simple nomination of a political party or in case of an independent candidate, support by at least 500 registered voters from their ward.

Most of those likely to be affected are people who in the past were members of parties such as Kanu, which until 1992 was the only party in the country.

Other parties such as DP, Ford-Kenya and Narc also undertook massive member recruitment drives in the 1990s and the past decade then submitted their membership registers to the Registrar’s office when it was established in 2006.

Jeopardise careers

It is believed that few politicians have complied with this law.

This is because, once an individual becomes a member of a party, his or her name will remain in its register until the party receives a letter indicating resignation from membership.

This may jeopardise many careers because the Act bars one from belonging to two political parties.

The risk is twofold for politicians and their supporters. On the one hand, the Registrar of Political Parties may check registers submitted by parties to find out if an individual is registered with more than one party.

An even greater risk is for a political party to file a petition to bar a politician from contesting a seat on grounds that he was their member in the past and has not revoked his membership.

Ndung’u said that her office would strictly enforce the provision of Article 14 of the Political Parties Act, 2011.

The Act also makes it an offence for elected representatives to form, join, support the formation, promote the ideology or engage in campaigns of a rival political party or its candidates.

According to Ms Ndung’u, their database is likely to frustrate the political bids of many if it is discovered that voters supporting their bids are still registered as members of other parties.

"To be safe, we are advising Kenyans to write resignation letters to all parties that they may have belonged to in the past and copy those letters to us and the IEBC. That will enable us to clean our records," she says.

Killing ambitions

Ms Ndung’u said the past registers presented to her office would not be deleted but parties are free to update them. She said Kanu, DP and Ford-Kenya, which were once formidable political parties, had presented massive member registers which might come back to haunt many candidates.

According to Ms Ndung’u, thousands of Kenyans are still captured as members of these pioneer political parties years after they moved to other parties according to the political atmosphere of the time — an art of party-hopping that Kenyan leaders and their voters have perfected.

The Elections Act 2011, also requires that one must resign from their earlier parties three months before a general election in order to be able to vie on another party’s ticket or as an independent.

In a pointer to what could be a potentially disastrous election in terms of logistics, the party membership rolls kept at the Registrar of Political Parties will be used to cross-check whether one was a member of two parties.
"Our database is arranged in such a way that we will be able to automatically reject multiple-party members when their names are presented as either candidates or in the lists of voters supporting a candidate for nomination," said Ms Ndung’u.

The supporting voters in case of a nomination must be members of the candidate’s party or for Independent candidates, those supporting them for nomination must also not be members of any political party.

Due to these requirements, any candidates may have their nomination papers rejected by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), possibly killing their political ambitions at the last minute.

Membership data

What the registrar did not say is whether candidates will get a window to amend their supporting lists if they are rejected by the IEBC as a result of cross-party membership during the nominations.

"As a member of a particular political party, one is barred by the current laws from supporting candidates of rival parties by signatures during the nomination stage," Ms Ndung’u said.

She made the revelations in Nyeri when she spoke at a women and youth leaders’ workshop last week.

According to her, membership data presented by the old parties when her office was established remained in the database and will be used as primary reference material during the next elections.

"The unified data will enable us reject party-hoppers whose names appear as members of another party or parties at the nomination stage," said Ms Ndung’u. "Although we will allow political parties to enhance earlier data, it’s upon individuals to take precautions to ensure the law does not frustrate them when it’s too late."

Ms Ndung’u said the earliest party membership records belonged to Kanu, Ford-Kenya and DP, but most of the earlier members have since moved on to other parties without cancelling their earlier affiliations.

"Apparently, Narc did not have very many members because it happened suddenly," said Ms Ndung’u.