An online platform for voters to check their registration status with political parties established by the Registrar of Political Parties (RPP) has brought into limelight how political parties distort democracy by registering voters to their parties without their consent.
Kenyans were deeply perplexed when they visited the website www.iebc.or.ke/rpp/ to confirm the parties they are registered with only to find out that they were falsely and illegally registered to political parties they are not affiliate to.
This was due to the fact that Political parties were required to seek fresh registration by April 30th 2012 and among other requirements, each political party had to file a list of 1,000 members per county from at least 24 counties.
In order to hastily beat the deadline set out by RPP, political parties resolved to falsely enlisting members from lists of mobile money transfer records and various other sources with little concern to the laws set out by the political parties act and the political rights of citizens.
The illegal move by political parties to fraudulently register members clearly brings into perspective the question as to whether the 51 political parties registered by RPP has met the threshold set out by the Political Parties Act 2011.
According to article 14 {8} of the Political Parties Act, a person who suppresses or attempts to suppress any lawful political activity of another person commits an offence and shall, on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding one million shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.
Furthermore Article 21{e} of the Act warns that the Registrar of political parties may deregister a political party if the political party obtained its registration in a fraudulent manner.
From the Act, it’s obvious that political parties have committed an offence punishable by law for registering a member without his or her knowledge and now it remains to be seen what action RPP will take to curb the illegal registration of members.
RPP must move with speed to ensure that necessary and legal actions are taken against political parties that have presented falsified information to them in order to guarantee that the gains made under the new Constitution dispensation are not shattered due to retrogressive political practices.
This move will be the only way RPP will ensure that the rule of law is upheld and respected and every Kenyan will lawfully and democratically be registered to political parties they are consented to.
