UDA has blazed the trail and set standards in party primaries

The United Democratic Alliance (UDA) nominations on Thursday marked a significant shift in the right direction for party democracy in Kenya.

It was a massive roll-out with the aspirants hitting a high of 5,000. It was conducted in 36 counties, 138 constituencies, 834 wards and in more than 15,000 polling stations. Tens of millions of ballot papers were printed, tens of thousands of ballot boxes and other poll materials bought and a 74,000-strong workforce  recruited to man the nominations.

This is unprecedented for a party that is only a year old and whose programmes and roll-out were hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Deputy President and UDA party leader William Ruto has described the nominations as "a near general election". And it was. The 1966 by-elections occasioned by the crossing of the floor by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga-allied MPs were referred to as “the little general election”.

The legislators abandoned Kanu and joined the opposition Kenya People’s Union. But those repeat polls 56 years ago – 29 in number and conducted in two days – pale into insignificance compared to UDA’s, which were 48 per cent of a present-day general election.

The bold decision to ensure that the wishes and expectations of UDA aspirants and members were met was the right one. It is based on the philosophy that democracy is about competition and the final arbiter can only be the people. It is also a political standpoint in UDA that political parties belong to the people, a marked difference from those who believe that the entities have their owners.

Political parties

The control of political parties by supremos is the bane of Kenya. It is what destroyed Kanu and the reason the independence party is now more cartoonish than a scarecrow. Jubilee, a massive party that ruled the roost in the 2017 elections, is following Kanu’s example like a Siamese twin brother.

ODM, a party that sent shivers down the spines of minions like PNU and Wiper in the 2007 General Election, is not any better. The more the owners have ringfenced it, the more it has dwindled. After the 2017 polls, for example, Jubilee was more than double the size of the Orange outfit. Going by the manner in which candidates have been selected this time round, ODM may cease to exist as we know it today.

UDA decided on day one that it would aspire to do the right thing. When politicians were still crowing that it was not time for politics, it went to the people to explain what the new party was about. It followed this with tens of meetings with aspirants across the country.

In these gatherings, never mind the police disrupted some, the party gave an undertaking to conduct free, fair, credible and verifiable nominations. Going by the close to 5,000 aspirants who registered to fly the UDA flag, it is evident that they believed in the message.

UDA was also novel in the way it recruited members. The recruitment was done in public, with hustlers traversing the villages and valleys, estates and alleys to have Kenyans subscribe to the new party. The digital platform the political organisation has set up was also used.

This was very refreshing, especially because it is well known that many political parties scour Mpesa records to register members without their consent and use other unorthodox methods to puff their numbers.

People with disabilities

The new kid on the block also recognised the hurdles that women, youth and people with disabilities face in politics, especially the electoral type. And it thus softened the ground through civic education and reduced fees. Women and youth paid half of what was required from the more agile gender, while people with disabilities did not pay a coin.

The lesson is thus clear: The management of a political party is serious business. It is equivalent to, if not more difficult than running a large company. And politics, to which political parties are vehicles, requires heavy financial and human resource investment, planning and execution. It is, therefore, no longer acceptable for political parties to collect membership and nomination fees and not invest in growing the organisations.

Equally, the practice where politicians wake up three months to the election to cobble up tribal coalitions and attempt to run for office is horrible management. The results are the ramshackle outfits we call political parties.

Of course, UDA experienced challenges as would be expected in such a massive undertaking. The fuel crisis made transportation of election materials a nightmare; sporadic incidents of destruction of materials and ballot mix up were witnessed. Of the over 15,000 polling stations, only 200 have been postponed. The repeat primaries will be held this week.

The standard has now been set.The party’s National Elections Board has been tested and found fit for purpose. It is now the turn for the disciplinary and dispute resolution committees to step up to the plate.

The writer works in the William Ruto presidential campaign; [email protected]