Jubilee’s electronic card to ensure free, fair nominations

As political parties gear up for party primaries to be held in a few weeks, aspirants have called on their respective leaders to ensure the process is conducted in a free and fair manner.

Jubilee Party, the political vehicle President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto will use to seek a second term come August 8, has already kicked off the preparation for the nomination process through the introduction of an electronic membership card.

The party secretariat, headed by former Cabinet Minister Raphael Tuju, says that the electronic membership card will go a long way in ensuring transparency during the nomination process.

Mr Tuju says that the party has already earmarked counties that are likely to experience trouble during the nomination process and is already streamlining them.

The card, which will be launched on Friday, January 13 by President Kenyatta, will be available to registered members at the party offices across the country.

“This card is one of its kind in Kenya. What we intend to do is to make our primaries free and fair and by the help of this card, our party is set for the exercise,” noted Tuju.

According to Tuju, the party has already started training officers on how to use technology in the nomination process.

Each card, he says, has a bar code for identification and the officers in charge of nominations will use bar code readers to conduct the exercise.

The party also says that it has made the card affordable to members with the one-off fee being capped at Ksh 20.

Once the bar code has been scanned, it will be input into the system to ensure that each member votes only once.

Upon launching the card, the Jubilee Party will kick off a countrywide membership registration to add to the already 5 million registered ones.