• The IEBC had targeted to list six million voters in the first phase and 4.5 million voters in the second phase that ended on Sunday.
• Lugari MP Ayub Savula said the youth feel their problems such as lack of employment cannot be solved by politicians and do not see the need to register and vote.
Image: HILTON OTENYO
The low number of people who registered in the just-concluded enhanced voter registration is a pointer the youth are not excited by politics, an MP has said.
Khwisero MP Christopher Aseka said failure by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to achieve its target of registering 10 million new voters could mean that the youth who were targeted do not see politics as a solution to the challenges they are facing.
“Expectations by the IEBC may also have been too high and their data needs to be verified. You cannot project to list 10 million Kenyans and fail to net even half the number,” he said.
The electoral commission recorded low voter registration numbers in its drive to list new voters ahead of the August 9 polls.
The IEBC had targeted to list six million voters in the first phase and 4.5 million voters in the second phase that ended on Sunday. The electoral agency however managed to register 2,560,860 new voters.
Aseka said if the commission’s projection of those to be registered depended on the number of youth who had been issued with ID cards since 2017, then most of them could have already been registered during the continuous voter registration.
Aseka, however, said the lower voter registration may not affect voter turnout during the election.
“It will only affect turnout in the Mt Kenya region because they will not be having one of their own on the ballot. That is the only region that has perfected the art of mobilisation,” he said.
Lugari MP Ayub Savula said the youth feel their problems such as lack of employment cannot be solved by politicians and do not see the need to register and vote.
Some politicians resorted to mobilising potential voters and ferrying them to registration centres to list ahead of the polls.
The commission has now directed registration officers in the 290 constituencies to undertake continuous voter registration (CVR) by deploying three BVR kits per constituency, to be stationed at Huduma centres countrywide.
Earlier in the week, IEBC blamed voter apathy and delay in issuance of ID cards for failure to hit the voter registration target.
“The commission attributes this (low numbers) to voter apathy and the national ID related issues,” IEBC acting CEO Marjan Hussein told the Star on Sunday.
Young eligible voters are said to have lost faith in the country’s leadership as successive leaders fail to implement projects that spur growth and create jobs leading to apathy.
There has also been concerns about delays in the issuance of ID cards— a mandatory document for one to get a voter’s card.
Either the youths who apply for the IDs do not collect them or bureaucracies in the application have made youth shun applying for the document.
The dismal numbers is a blow to the political bigwigs, especially Deputy President William Ruto and ODM chief Raila Odinga.
They have been rallying their backyards to register in their numbers to boost their chances of succeeding President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The two could now be forced to go back to the drawing board and reconfigure plans as they battle for numbers in the high stakes August 9 General Election.
Edited by A.N.