64 per cent of males register with political parties ahead of polls

Men have double the number of women registered to political parties at 15 million and 8.6 million, respectively, totaling 24.5 million Kenyans registered as members of various parties.

The Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu made the announcement today after the receipt of the party membership list by last Saturday.

“We have 24,571,400 registered members in political parties in the country. Of the list, 15 million are male while 8.6 million are female. A total of 82 political parties have submitted their lists,” she said.

Nderitu noted that the membership of political parties will be certified by April 2, ahead of the primaries.

She stated that the register of political parties is expected to complete certification and present the list to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in time for nominations within seven days.

“The deadline for submission of certified party membership register to IEBC is April 9,” she said.

As of March 28, a total of 912 independent candidates had manually applied for clearance with 650 applications having so far been cleared.

Before submitting their membership list to the ORPP for accreditation, parties will be expected to clean it up.

A political party must request a certified party register at least 21 days before the date of its party nominations, according to the law.

A political party is free to choose a candidate via direct or indirect nomination, according to the law.

“Through a co-operation with e-citizen, the office is cleaning up the membership registry in preparation for certification,” she added.

As part of the execution of a recently established regulation that says that registered party members can participate in nominations, the activity aims at weeding out double and illegal registration.