Political parties move to resolve errors in registration

Registrar of Political Parties Ann Nderitu addresses Secretary Generals of various political parties in Nakuru on July 29, 2021 [Harun Wathari, Standard}

A digital platform will be set up to allow Kenyans who were erroneously registered to political parties recently to resign from them and or register with other preferred outfits.

Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu and Data Protection Commissioner Immaculate Kassait yesterday held a meeting in Nakuru with political parties secretary generals on the matter.

Addressing the press, Nderitu said the parties have agreed to work closely with the relevant offices to ensure that the concerns raised by affected voters are addressed prior to the next polls.

"We are developing the digital platform and sensitizing the parties on the plan to make it easy for Kenyans to quit or register with parties of their choice. This will resolve the outcry by those who were recently affected," said Nderitu.

In June, Kenyans expressed their fury with the state agencies handling their data after they found out that they had been registered in political parties they didn't wish to be associated with.

"Secretary generals have committed that they will not keep members who are not willing to be part of them. It is a question of parties just deleting them from their registers," said Nderitu.

She, however, said that leaders should not be in a hurry to tell Kenyans to quit the various political parties but instead sensitize them on the need to belong to outfits whose ideals they share in.

Kassait said that the Data Protection Commission was now more proactive in ensuring private data belonging to Kenyans is safe to avoid any malicious use by rogue entities.

“What happened was a technical error which we are working on to ensure it doesn’t recur. In collaboration with the registrar and political parties we are working on a system to manage data and ensure its protection,” said Kassait.

With the country heading to a general election in a year’s time, the commissioner said that they are committed to ensure compliance on the part of political parties whose registers are susceptible.

“We have a timeline of 90 days to the election for parties to submit their registers. Illegal access of such data may be used to lock out candidates by registering them into the wrong parties,” said Kassait.