CAMPAIGN TRICKS

An Anglican clergyman will stop offering Holy Communion to Christians who have no voter’s card.

Canon Walter Okeyo of the Migori Parish said he will do this to fight voter registration apathy in Nyanza.

“It will be a condition in my church that you first show me your voter’s card before receiving Holy Communion,” he told a workshop at the Migori Maranatha Conference Centre.

Religious leaders

The meeting, convened by the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) network, brought together religious leaders, political party officials, youth and women leaders, who were challenged to get residents to register in the new voters roll.

Mr Okeyo who declared that he will vote for the draft constitution, told leaders of the mainstream churches to get Kenyans to register as voters instead of “deafening the ears of the people with the No campaigns everyday”.

Other participants suggested that women deny men who had not registered their conjugal rights “just to show how serious the matter is”.

“We need concerted efforts to realise high voter turnout in the referendum and the 2012 General Election. People’s attitude must be changed through any workable method including denial of conjugal rights,” said ODM official Oloo Odari.

Participants were bitter that area MPs were busy following Prime Minister Raila Odinga in his campaigns in other parts of the country and forgetting to get people at the grassroots to register as voters.

Not registered

Some MPS had not even registered in their constituencies, they argued.

Said CSO chief executive Betty Okero: “We are working closely with the Nyanza Youth Coalition to carry out extensive door-to-door campaigns. We will also tell the people about the contents of the draft to let them separate truth from myth.”

Ms Okero regretted that some politicians and members of the clergy in the No campaign were deliberately distorting facts to “suit their misplaced egos”.

Migori constituency is among the leading in Nyanza in the voter registration, with about 42,000 registered so far.

Constituency elections co-ordinator Maurice Raria said his team was targeting 65,000 voters in the border constituency by the end of the drive.

He, however, said people displaced during the post-election violence were unlikely to register because they had not returned to their homes.

He spoke as Migori DC Julius Mutula challenged the residents to register as voters in large numbers, saying the vote was the only weapon in electing responsible leadership in a democratic society like Kenya.

“Get the voters card in readiness for the referendum in which you will determine the constitutional future of your country,” the DC said during a public meeting at the Migori Bus Park.

Mayor George Ombori told the Migori Town residents to ignore their “confused church leaders” and vote Yes so the country could get a new constitution before the next General Election.

He claimed some members of the clergy had been “compromised by desperate politicians” to derail the review process.

“A resounding Yes vote will stop them from misleading Kenyans in future. We want to embarrass them during the referendum vote,” Mr Ombori said.

Long queues have become a permanent feature outside the Migori office of the registration bureau of persons, with thousands of school and college leavers seeking to get national identity cards before the referendum vote.

But the process is slow, with fears that most of them could be locked out of the vote to determine the fate of the country. It is a requirement that one register as a voter by first acquiring an ID.

The border town has a council of elders who are vetting applicants in a bid to lock out foreigners from getting the important document.

Records at the registration office indicate that at least 5,000 applications are received every week but only about 1,000 are processed.