National Congress (ANC) party leader Musalia Mudavadi has vehemently opposed a proposal that seeks to make it mandatory for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to develop its voter register from the Huduma Namba registration system.
Mudavadi, in a statement released on Tuesday, said the passing of the bill will erode public trust in the integrity of the IEBC ahead of the 2022 general election preparations.
“A voter register is the most sensitive and delicate component of our elections. It is dangerous to do anything that will further dent public trust or that may be misinterpreted as mischief, to such a sensitive register, especially when we are already in the active phase of the electoral cycle,” said Mudavadi.
He blamed the poorly revised measures into putting up enough Huduma Namba registration centers that he says inconvenienced individuals in the diaspora who experience challenges in obtaining national identity cards.
“The Huduma Namba registration process has normally required one to present themselves in person to registration officers for their biometric and other personal identification details to be taken. Kenyans in the diaspora who wished to register for Huduma Namba had to make provision for traveling back home for the registration to take place. The Huduma Namba disadvantaged Kenyans in the diaspora,” he stated.
Claiming that the integrity of the Huduma Namba system sparked off a lot of questions, the One Kenya Alliance (OKA) co-principal said all procedural steps should be followed to fully integrate the system, and that it should operate within the provided legal frameworks to win Kenyans’ trust.
“There is general agreement in Kenya right now that we have a serious trust deficit and this is a key ingredient in the divisive elections that the country has severely suffered from,” he said.
“The Huduma Namber system has serious gaps which elicits minimum public trust. It must not be used for purposes of developing and/or managing a voter register for our forthcoming elections.”
