By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com And NJERI RUGENE nrugene@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, February 25 2012 at 20:57
Posted Saturday, February 25 2012 at 20:57
The attention of American voters is currently on the gruelling Republican presidential primaries pitting front runner Mitt Romney against Rick Santorum.
The primary process was initially seen as a walk in the park for Romney, but Santorum now threatens to run away with the GOP ticket, saying he is the most competent to face President Barack Obama in the November presidential election.
But this campaign noise is coming only from the Republican side. Members of President Obama’s Democratic Party and many independent voters are watching from the sidelines. What is going on is a Republican affair.
As far as party congresses are concerned, Kenya would seem to have followed the lead of some American states that require party membership to vote in the primaries.
This will be particularly significant during party nominations for candidates for president, Parliament, Senate and County Assembly.
There was a tendency in the past of some voters to hop from one party nomination to another.
Because of money, such people would participate in one party’s nomination one day and in another’s the following day. But those days are over.
The Political Parties Act and the Elections Act confine voters to just one party. And only card-carrying members will be allowed to participate in party nominations.
This means that if you are a registered member of the Wiper party, you cannot participate in the election of United Republican Party candidates.
Every political party is required to register its members and submit the names to the Registrar of Political Parties for inspection.
According to the acting Registrar of Political Parties Ms Lucy Ndung’u, a computer program has been created to identify people who have registered for more than one party and will effectively bar them from participating in party elections.
That is why, as parties rush to recruit ahead of the May 26 deadline, voters must be careful to register in only one party and stick with it.
And subsection (5) states: “A person who, while being a member of a political party forms another political party, joins in the formation of another party, joins another party, in anyway or manner publicly advocates for the formation of another political party or promotes the ideology, interests or policies of another political party, shall be deemed to have resigned from the previous political party.”
However, those in coalitions which are recognised by the Registrar can propagate activities and ideologies of more than one party, but only those under the same umbrella.
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