The gender parity nightmare will once again rear its ugly head at key political parties in Kenya after IEBC records showed that they failed to meet the two-third gender requirement as per the Constitution.
Deputy President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) and Azimio presidential aspirant Raila Odinga’s ODM top the list of parties that failed to actualise the two-third gender requirement and risk being barred from contesting in the 2022 general election.
41 other parties also failed the gender test on their National Assembly nominees.
Another 33 political parties failed to comply with the requirement for gender parity in their nomination of representative in the Senate, IEBC records reveled.
The IEBC has already communicated to the parties and with the ask of a review and amendment of the list to comply with the constitutional recommendation ahead of the Monday midnight deadline.
Some of the culprits include ODM, UDA, Jubilee Party, Amani National Congress, The Service Party, Movement for Growth and Democracy (MDG) party, Narc and Narc Kenya.
The parties have just about 24 hours to revise their nomination lists and resubmit to the IEBC by midnight tomorrow.
“Non-compliant political parties will not participate in the 2022 General Election for the said elective positions,” IEBC boss said.
Chebukati noted that out of 81 parties, only 48 have met the gender requirement in respect of Senate races, while 38 have achieved the rule in respective of the 290 National Assembly seats.
According to the analysis by IEBC all affected parties has less than a third of their nominees as women.