Deputy President William Ruto has urged political parties to allow Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to conduct party nominations. He said the credibility of 2017 General Election lies in the political party nominations which can only reach the highest standards possible if IEBC conducted the primaries.
He also accused the opposition of derailing efforts of the Jubilee administration to unite the nation. Speaking during the 21st Law Society of Kenya (LSK) annual conference in Diani, Ruto said the clamour for the formation of a national party is to address requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution.
“Chapter Six of the Constitution is not just about the flowery issues of integrity and good governance, we must begin to pin it down to real steps that will see people who yield influence of power are subjected to a process that ensures those who lack integrity do not get into positions of authority and power,” Ruto said.
He said balkanisation of the country and ethnicity-based politics is a significant contributor to governance gaps in which public positions are not given in terms of merit.
“The reason President Uhuru and I decided to build a national political party is because we believe that, to address Chapter Six issues and take the politics of this nation to the next level, we must have a serious national party that cannot be blackmailed by few individuals,” he said.
Ruto observed that the single critical threat to serious political party membership and institutionalising of political multi-party is party primaries.
He said Jubilee has proposed the need to professionalise the management of political parties since as institutions of governance, the government is as good as that political party that forms it.
“We must professionalise the management of our political parties as the ground which we harvest those who become leaders to yield influence of power, that is why nominations should be carried out by a professional entity mandated by the constitution to carry out party nominations and that is IEBC,” said Ruto.
He said parties which are used to ‘auctioning’ nominations to individuals have serious issues with the proposals because they want to continue in the business of selling party tickets to crooks who are used to getting their way into leadership without any mechanism.
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