By Standard On Saturday Team
Have you registered as a voter? If your answer to that question is still a ‘no’, you may find yourself unwelcome in many social places this weekend.
Kenyans from all walks of life have taken it upon themselves to ensure more eligible voters do their civic duty, whether they want to or not.
While the law bars compulsion and allows people who do not want to take part in elections to sit them out, many of the early registrants say the next General Election is too important to skip.
Some are now denying various services to anyone who cannot prove they have registered by producing a receipt from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
An Ipsos-Synovate poll released yesterday found that 97 per cent of respondents intended to register to vote, up from 91 per cent the month before.
However, Kenyan voters have historically been keen to avoid registering or voting (see graphic on Page 3). This has sparked a major last-minute push to drive up more registrations.
“Don’t just complain about bad leaders,” IEBC said in an SMS alert yesterday. “Do something. Bad leaders are chosen by good citizens who do not vote.”
Yesterday, President Kibaki called on all eligible Kenyans to register for the vote. Reminding Kenyans that they held the country’s future in their hands, the Head of State urged leaders to mobilize eligible voters in all corners of the country. “As Kenyans meet in churches, mosques, temples and other places of worship this weekend, I encourage our religious leaders to mobilize their followers to register as voters,” Kibaki said. He asked Kenyans to use the forthcoming elections to demonstrate to the world that Kenya has matured in understanding democracy by remaining a united despite divergent opinions.
The Orange Democratic Movement led by Prime Minister Raila Odinga will also hold a series of activities this weekend as part of the ODM Mashinani campaign to drive party membership and encourage people to register as voters.
And today the Chargé d’Affaires of the United States Embassy in Nairobi Robert F. Godec will visit the IEBC voter registration site at Thika Stadium at 10am. He will be accompanied by IEBC chair Issack Hassan, British High Commissioner to Kenya Christian Turner, and Danish Ambassador to Kenya Geert Aagaard Andersen. After a short tour of the registration site, the officials will address the media on the situation.
Provincial administrators are taking a lead role in the last-minute push, with several county commissioners and other officials directing chiefs and their assistants to mobilise eligible voters.
The orders were repeated at various events marking the Jamhuri Day holiday on Wednesday this week, most memorably by Nyanza PC Peter Mutie who urged a sex boycott by spouses whose partners are yet to sign up.
The administrators take their cue from the leaders of the Grand Coalition all of whom have called on voters to turn out in large numbers for the exercise, which ends on December 18. Officials of the IEBC have warned that there will be no extensions of the registration period, even if they do not meet the 18-million target they had set themselves. The result has been pressure from various quarters to draw out reluctant voters by any means necessary.
Compulsory voting
The poor response from voters is thought to be due to the peculiar Kenyan habit of doing everything at the last minute. With the prospect of millions of eligible voters being locked out, however, the challenge has prompted suggestions that voting should be made compulsory, as is the case in more than a dozen countries.
However, this practice is considered a “highly questionable” in most democracies and is strongly opposed in the few where it exists. One common argument is that people who have low interest in politics may influence an election negatively if they are pushed into taking part against their will.
While voting is a right, critics say, it should not be turned into an obligation or duty to a disengaged electorate.
“In Australia, with compulsory voting, polls are won or lost often on the most irrational reasons,” Aussie Olympian Ron Clarke argued.
Social pressure is the strongest motivator in most cases. In Malindi, which had just a fraction of its 75,856 voters registered as at Tuesday last week, Kaya elders took it upon themselves to go door-to-door encouraging registration. Counties in the coastal region have been plagued by incidents of intimidation of potential voters and registration clerks by supporters of the separatist Mombasa Republican Council. Some Members of Parliament have also begun visiting their constituents in an effort to get out the vote.
Non-governmental organisations are also joining in the fray, with the Centre for Human Rights and Governance, for instance, drawing out stragglers in the Rift Valley region.
Their targets are potential voters affected by insecurity due to banditry and cattle rustling in the region.
Investigations by The Standard On Saturday reveal different reasons why people are yet to register as voters. While many have just been procrastinating, some have no choice having used their national ID cards as collateral. A voter in Central claimed her National ID card has been withheld by a shylock (money lender). She appealed to a local politician to help her retrieve the ID so she can register. Other prospective voters in the region also reported depositing the vital documents with their chamas. Apathy was more evident at the coast where disillusioned residents appeared to have boycotted the process citing decades of neglect by their leaders.
BVR machines
There have been reports of elderly voters, owners of illicit guns, fugitives from justice and others being afraid of using the biometric voter registration machines. Civil society leaders say memories of 2007 may also play a role in the turnout, an assertion some politicians from the Rift Valley have disputed. According to Ochieng’ Kairallah, the Executive Director of Citizens Coalition for a Constitutional Culture, there should have been programmes for reconciliation in worst affected areas.
-— Reporting by Felix Olick, Dan Okoth and Wainaina Ndung’u.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment