Rush to register political parties ahead of General Election
By Rawlings Otieno, August 9, 2021
With less than 365 days to the next polls, there is a rush to register political parties that candidates will use for various elective positions.
As at May this year, the Registrar of Political Parties Ann Nderitu had registered 73, political parties in Kenya, while those with provisional as of August, 2021, stood at 23 parties.
Section 34 (e) of the Political Parties Act, 2011 obliges the Office of Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP )to maintain a register of political parties and the symbols of political parties.
“In line with this provision, as at May, 2021, there were 73 fully registered parties.
There are eight political parties that have now applied for full registration,” said Nderitu.
Nderitu explained that it is important to note that the eight parties are still in the register of provisionally registered parties, in line with section 5(6) of the Political Parties Act (PPA), 2011 and they are at varied stages of assessment to ascertain compliance to conditions for full registration in line with section 7 of the PPA.
The ORPP wants the law reviewed so that political parties are allowed to publish financial statements and other required publications using online avenues including official and registered political parties websites.
“We are working to review the law so that more parties can qualify for the political parties funding,” she said.
Nderitu said issues surrounding membership register will now be done by on-boarding of Integrated Political Parties Management System , an ORPP-internally developed and administered system to E-citizen platform.
This, she explained will entail modules for checking membership status, resignation and joining of parties.
Nderitu said that her office is harmonisng timelines between clearance of political parties candidates and the independent candidates clearance (symbol clearance, membership status).
And to avoid Political parties register having names of Kenyans who have not registered to be members, Nderitu explained they have engaged with political parties secretary generals and resolved that members that had officially submitted complaints to ORPP, will be removed from register by the concerned parties.