We must first applaud the two political parties (UDA and ODM) because party elections and party primaries are the two most difficult areas that have either split political parties or destroyed their popularity.
But if well handled, they have very good democratic dividends for both the parties. It's worth noting they are the majority and minority parties.
It also has good dividends for the citizens because you are bringing a good level of political sanity where issues of public participation, representation, fairness and intra-party democratic processes are checked.
When you come to elections, those representative interests are better aggregated and articulated by people that have a mandate to do so on behalf of these groupings that identify by specific ideologies, values or philosophies.
This is a very momentous occasion that all Kenyans must really applaud.
It is also in compliance with the law. The jurisprudence around formation of political parties, registration, regulation and management has really developed since 2007.
Therefore, the legal framework, and even constitution, requires that these political parties comply with specific laws.
And one of them is the legitimacy of their leaders. We will be checking things like two-thirds gender representation. That is part of the process of implementing the Constitution.
Political parties are public institutions. They benefit from public funding, so this is very significant.
We would want to see as the party conducts grassroots elections, candidates seeking office espousing specific policy agenda so that members of the parties can enjoy their democratic rights.
What will be the new ODM like with some specific set of leaders, and what will new UDA be like with some specific set of leaders?
For UDA, specifically, the grassroots elections are very important because Jubilee governed for 10 years. URP and TNA governed between 2013-2017 and never conducted any election, a very sorry state for our democratic development.
So, we really applaud UDA for looking at it (grassroots elections) and considering it a priority.
Kenyans should support and monitor that process, demand that leaders who get elected are elected based on their ideas to develop those parties and therefore our multiparty democracy thrives.
Centre for Multiparty Democracy executive director spoke to the Star
