Jubilee Party has proven to be dealing with an avalanche of support from its membership, a challenge that has sounded a wake-up call to the party’s administration and, by extension the IEBC.
With Election Day barely a 100 days, away the institutions mandated with ensuring a flawless and credible process are faced with the onus of ensuring believable results.
Political party democracy has over the years evolved from almost automatic appointment to a more participatory process and in some cases an amalgamation of various processes to pick ticket bearers.
Thus, to dismiss the Jubilee Party nominations as shambolic can be translated as being oblivious to the gruelling journey of democracy and party institutionalisation.
In the quest for political party institutionalisation, the Jubilee secretariat may have been found under-prepared. The party leadership and the National Elections Board now have an opportunity to remap the entire process to address all the shortcomings before the IEBC Wednesday deadline of conducting nominations.
The President, who is also the JP presidential candidate, has expressed confidence in the party’s leadership to correct its wrongs and reaffirmed their ability to carry out the nomination competently. His speech on April 22 read, “Yesterday was unprecedented for the Jubilee Party. While the party was prepared for a normal party primary, we were confronted by a full-scale general election in terms of the sheer massive turnout we all witnessed.”
In a reconciliatory tone, he reiterated, “The Jubilee Party is committed to free, fair, transparent and credible nominations, which as we have repeatedly stated, must reflect the will of the people.”
The thing to remember is the JP nominations are a structured approach following the merging of political parties in its strongholds. Its desire is to ensure a more institutionalised nomination system that puts the interests of supporters over those of the party. This was a first and JP was bound to be faced with implementation challenges. However it is not impossible to manage.
Admitting the challenges is a clear sign that indeed throughout the process those with grievances were heard as the party democratically seeks to put the people’s candidates of choice forward.
MPs are elected by the people of Kenya and are therefore accountable to them. Jubilee is therefore faced with the challenge of having inevitable losers, however popular they may have presented themselves to be, as it is the people who will choose who becomes flagbearer.
The President and Deputy President, the party’s principals, are on record saying there would be no favourites. The political space is becoming interesting. Perhaps the current political party nominations have‚ at last‚ imposed on our country the opportunity and obligation to define the democratic and moral relationship between the people and their elected representatives.
As the nomination process continues across the nation, let us subscribe to the following words of advice from Nelson Mandela, “We must nurture tolerance, collective wisdom, and democracy.”