Nomination list will remain unchanged, IEBC says
Political Parties have been dealt with a major blow after the electoral agency said that nomination lists will not be changed.
According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the party lists remain closed and cannot be changed unless through a court order.
“We wish to inform the public that as per the Constitution and the Elections Act, the party list remains a closed list as at the date of General Election and for the term of Parliament or County Assembly, as the case may be, for which the candidates are elected and cannot be changed unless through an order of the court,” IEBC stated.
The commission maintained that the allocation of nomination seats to political party members was unbiased.
The Wafula Chebukati led commission said that the formula for allocating the nomination slots cannot be manipulated to favour certain individuals.
“The formulae which was applied through an electronic system is simple, secure and accurate and is without room for either adverse human intervention or bias,” read part of the statement.
This comes after Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi claimed that the process to nominate Members of Parliament, Senators and Members of the County Assemblies was turned into an auction process.
According to the lawyer, women from poor families were replaced with women from rich families because they “allegedly bribed party officials and IEBC”.
“All political parties and IEBC should be ashamed for turning the nomination lists for MPs, Senators and MCA seats into an auction process where the highest bidders win the bid… Shame on you,” he said.
Last week, IEBC gazetted the list of party nominees to the Senate and National and county assemblies.
Parties nominated 12 members in the National Assembly, 16 women to the Senate, two youth representatives to the Senate and two nominees to represent persons living with disabilities in the Senate.
UDA got five slots in the National Assembly against ODM with three.
ANC, UDM and Jubilee got a slot each while Wiper was not allocated a slot due to an interim court order restraining the commission from assigning the seat.
Kenya Kwanza has eight women nominees to the Senate and two others for those representing marginalised groups, bringing the total to 10.
Meanwhile, ODM got five slots to represent women and two others for disadvantaged groups.
