The Registrar of Political Parties was yesterday under pressure to explain the embarrassing anomalies in party registers, especially in cases where people find themselves listed under outfits they do not ascribe to.
Dagoretti MP John Kiarie told a parliamentary committee that he recently discovered he was still classified as an ODM member although he was elected on a Jubilee ticket in the 2017 General Election.
Mr Kiarie made the discovery when he tried to resign from Jubilee for Deputy President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance.
He said that he used the USSD code *509# provided by the Office of Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) to facilitate members to resign from political parties they don’t want to be associated with.
“I tried to resign using the code only to realise that I am not even a member of the party I intended to resign from,” Mr Kiarie said.
Under the Political Parties Act that came into force on February 11, the parties’ register is a primary document to be used by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and ORPP to prepare for a general election.
The IEBC has cleared 82 parties and their nomination rules for the August 9 polls.
“The records showed that I was still a member of ODM despite being processed for the 2017 polls on a Jubilee ticket. I am now forced to resign manually from the two parties and take the documents to the ORPP before I can be enlisted as a UDA member,” the Dagoretti South MP told the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC).
JLAC chair Muturi Kigano (Kangema) observed: “This is strange. I am hearing about it for the first time.”
Ms Anne Nderitu, the custodian of the 85 parties’ membership registers, blamed Mr Kiarie’s issue on the previous legal regime, adding that providing wrong information to the ORPP is punishable under the law.
“What Mr Kiarie has said is quite interesting but not totally an isolated case,” she said.
Ms Nderitu said previously, parties submitted their membership registers for the purpose of a general election to the IEBC and ORPP separately.
The case of Mr Kiarie could be an indication that ODM presented different documents to the IEBC and the ORPP. To address such a problem, the Political Parties’ Act states that outfits must first submit their membership lists to the ORPP by March 26.
The registrar validates the registers before submitting them to the IEBC for the general election. “This law makes it illegal to register a member without their consent. A party can be deregistered for providing incorrect information,” Ms Nderitu stated.
With the Data Protection Act, a party will have to seek consent from potential members before enlisting them.
One will be required to approve an electronic request on their mobile phone number for the registration to be completed.
This will address mischievous incidents where Kenyans find themselves registered as members of parties without their knowledge and consent. BY DAILY NATION