Deputy President William Ruto yesterday camped at Jubilee Party headquarters to monitor the nominations to avoid a repeat of last Friday’s mess that led to the cancellation of the exercise.
Ruto took over leadership of the primaries on Saturday.
Yesterday, he spent the whole day at the JP offices in Pangani from 11am to ensure nominations in five counties ran smoothly. The counties are Bomet, Nandi, Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet and Kirinyaga.
JP secretary general Raphael Tuju and the National Elections Board chairman Andrew Musangi confirmed proper measures, such as timely transportation of election materials to polling stations, had been improved and there were limited hitches. “We have sufficient resources. The DP is here for consultation,” Tuju said.
The DP refused to address journalists at the party headquarters.
Musangi said cases of insufficient ballot papers were reported in Kapkatemba ward, Bomet county, but they addressed the matter immediately.
He said names of voters missing in party lists in Gichugu constituency in Kirinyaga were also resolved by asking returning officers to allow voters with IDs to vote.
“Jubilee Party has maintained that no voter should be disenfranchised. We have realised that voters whose names are missing in the party list either changed their polling stations or registered during the recent IEBC mass voter listing, but are yet to be captured because nobody has the commission’s updated register,” Musangi said. He said Murang’a nominations scheduled for today have been pushed to tomorrow due to logistical issues.
The party also postponed nominations for Marsabit, Samburu and Turkana to tomorrow.
Musangi said the party is aware of the Malindi court ruling extending the nominations period to May 1 and that JP officials are “interrogating the order to see if it has any impact on the exercise.”