NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 15 — The United Democratic Alliance party is weighing writing to the poll agency to allow them more time to submit names of duly nominated candidates in cases where disputes arising from primaries.
This is in the event that the party will not have conclusively finalized disputes arising from the party nominations by April 22nd after the National Election Board rescheduled a repeat exercise in 10 constituencies to April 19.
According to the party’s dispute resolution committee, aggrieved aspirants have 48 hour after the exercise to file complaints.
Respondents have until 24 hours to respond to the complains which will be way beyond the stipulated timelines in the current scenario.
This potentially means that UDA party contenders with complains might be denied chance for redress due to strict timelines.
“You know that these exercises are manned by human beings. If we will have a critical issues that requires a day or two. Its possible for us to talk to registrar of political parties and IEBC to give us a day or two to solve this issues. All these institutions are manned by intelligent people,” Deputy President William Ruto, the UDA Party Leader, said while addressing the media.
Political parties must also conclude primaries by April 22.They are also required to handle any nomination disputes within the same time frame.
The magnitude of the disputes arising from the 10 constituencies where the exercise will be conducted on Tuesday will determine whether they will need an extension of time from the relevant organs.
Ruto expressed that the dispute resolution committee has the leeway to use consensus to arrive to a candidate after keen assessment.
This he says will save more time for party organs to come up with a list of nominated candidates.
“Bear in mind they are alternative process of how to arrive at candidates by looking at various other parameters. These parameters are at the disposal of the party to arrive at a candidate,” he stated.
Ruto mentioned that the rescheduling of the repeat nomination exercise was to reduce the bulk complains expected from the party primaries by staggering the shambolic ones.
“We want to provide sufficient time to the disputes tribunal. Tuesday exercise will be ten percent of exercise, therefore it will take shorter time to resolve,” he asserted.
Ruto set aside countrywide campaigns to focus on primaries to stem any acrimony that would hurt their prospects.
The exercise was conducted in 36 counties with tears, chaos and disruptions characterizing the nomination process marred with vote rigging claims.
“We had challenges in Starehe and we are now contemplating whether to repeat the whole exercise or in areas where they were challenges. The same challenges in Kamkunji, if we assess that it has dented the process then we will repeat the exercise,” Ruto noted.
The party has however insisted that aggrieved parties in the nomination process will be free to air their grievances to the dispute resolution committee.
“We are a party that believe in democracy. Party constitution provide for an avenue for solving any disputes. Any member who feels they have issues to raise the dispute resolutions ready to listen to each and every member in a peaceful manner,” Ruto noted.
UDA’s primaries kicked off on Thursday with some aspirants and voters claiming that the exercise was unfair, unjust and chaotic.
Party primaries in Bomet County were marred with rigging claims with aspirants accusing presiding officers of having pre-marked ballot papers.
In Embu the nominations kicked off at a slow pace with officials dispelling rumors that they had been cancelled over the incident that took place where voting materials were set on fire by rowdy youths claiming they were to be used to rig out some candidates.
“We believe that violence will not be in the equation of any operations in our party. We have taken decisive action against those involved in violence,” Ruto affirmed.
