ODM MEMO TO MEMBERS, INTERIOR MINISTRY AND IEBC:
January 28, 2017.
1: Suspension of party membership drive:
All elected leaders and aspirants on the ticket of the Orange Democratic Movement are hereby directed to immediately stop the membership recruitment drive that had been announced earlier and get focused on voter registration. All energy and resources of our various groups and party cadres must be dedicated to driving voter registration turnout.
After spending the first days on planning and building the infrastructure, our national get-out-the-voters must roll out in full swing without any distractions. Any leaders or aspirants who go against this directive will be considered to be working directly against the interests of the party.
2: Partisan conduct of the Ministry of Interior:
The party notes with concern that the directive by President Uhuru Kenyatta that national identity cards be issued to all Kenyans within three days of application is not being applied universally. We have noted that chiefs in Nyanza, Western, the Coast and other regions perceived to be Opposition leaning are being denied the basics like fuel and travel allowances that they need to implement the order by the President.
Equally, registration offices in these areas, including Huduma centres, are permanently lacking the documents they need to facilitate registration persons. In other places, chiefs have been intimidated and have succumbed to the illegal orders by the Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery that they must not facilitate registration in perceived Opposition zones. This is an attempt at advance rigging of the August polls. We put the minister on notice that we take his threat to the chiefs and its visible consequences and that he must be prepared to bear its consequences in the fullness of time.
3: IEBC complacency:
ODM wishes to notify the IEBC that we are taking note of its complacency and silence on the matters being raised by the Opposition with regard to the voter registration. The IEBC is loud in silence over open interference in the voter registration exercise by the Interior Ministry, the campaign of hate and incitement in some vernacular radio stations and the preferential implementation of the order on issuance of identity cards.
We remind the IEBC that it has the sole mandate to ensure all Kenyans of voting age are registered to vote. It is also the IEBC’s sole mandate to ensure that elections are free and fair and that the infrastructure to the elections does not favour any one player. We reserve the right to interpret the IEB’s silence as complicity in the conspiracy to rig elections in favour of Jubilee.
RT. HON RAILA ODINGA
January 28, 2017.
