Major political parties were last night busy working on various modalities of retaining losers in today's primaries which are expected to be very competitive
The outcome of today's nominations will have a strong bearing on the continued survival of the pre-election coalitions and in some areas a nomination ticket guarantees aspirants a win in the general elections.
As part of the strategy to contain the anticipated fall-outs, major political parties have held back the preparation of lists of the persons they hope to nominate to the National Assembly, Senate and County assemblies until after the conclusion of the primaries today. Parties are expected to present their lists of people they hope to nominate before January 29th. The lists will be final and cannot be altered.
Apart from promising those who lose out in the nominations appointment to various organizations and government departments, Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga, Jubilee's Uhuru Kenyatta, Wiper's Kalonzo Musyoka, URP's William Ruto and UDF's Musalia Mudavadi are also understood to be promising those who are unsuccessful that they will be included in the presidential campaign teams and other county campaign teams.
ODM has gone a step further and promised those who will not be successful today that they will be named Cabinet Secretaries, ambassadors, commissioners to various commissions and some will be given parastatal jobs if the party wins the elections.
"We have told all our members that we value them. Whether you get a nomination or not you have a role to play in the party and in the future. The nominations are not a matter of life and death," said ODM chairman Henry Kosgey yesterday.
The appointments to most of these key position is no longer the sole preserve of the executive as Parliament has to vet and ratify the nominees.
TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja also assured party members that the party will accommodate all those who lose in the primaries.
"We have told our members that all of them are important that we will accommodate them," said Sakaja.
Ruto was also last night busy reaching out to some of his key supporters in Rift Valley who are going head to head in the nominations with promises of government jobs if they stayed with URP.
According to the Jubilee coalition agreement, Uhuru and Ruto will have some leeway to directly nominate up to 12 per cent of candidates of all the parliamentary seats in the election. A 12-member elections board will determine who will get the direct nominations.
“The presidential candidate and deputy presidential candidate will retain residual discretion in very limited circumstances to determine instances where both the resources of the coalition permit both parties to issue nomination certificates provided that such instances shall not exceed 12 per cent of the total number of parliamentary seats,” says the coalition agreement.
The National Assembly will have 12 nominated MPs to represent special interests including the youth, persons with disabilities and workers.
The Senate will have in total 20 slots for nominations with 18 already reserved for women.
There will be 16 women who will be nominated by the parties in according with their proportion of members of the Senate elected on the March 4 elections.
There will also be two nominated members, a woman and a man representing the youth.
There will also be two more nominated Senators, a man and a woman representing persons with disabilities.
For the County Assembly, the number of those to be nominated in each county will remain unknown until after the results of the elections are announced and the gender parity of those elected is weighed.
The number of nomination slots will be determined based on how many more members are required to ensure no more than two-thirds of the membership of the assembly are of the same gender.
Each political party is required to submit to the IEBC six separate lists for those to be nominated.
The first list will be for the 12 MP slots, the second list will be for the 16 women Senators, and the remaining two lists will be for persons representing the youth and those with disabilities.
There will also be a list for individuals that the party hopes to nominate in the county assemblies to ensure gender parity and also another list for those who are likely to be nominated to represent marginalised groups, including persons with disabilities and the youth.
The names in each list are supposed to be listed in order of priority. Article 34 (9) of the Elections Act provides that “the party list may contain a name of any Presidential or Deputy Presidential candidate nominated for an election.”
The IEBC according to Section 54 (5) of the Elections (General) Regulations, 2012 has powers to reject a nominee submitted by a political party for any elective post if that nominee is not qualified to be elected to the office for which the nomination is sought as specified under the Constitution or the Elections Act.
