Ticket Bribery Claims tops the reasons why ODM is losing popularity

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As the Orange Democratic Movement ODM, struggles to reclaim its glorious past in the country, new findings as to why the once popular and biggest party in Kenya is fast losing popularity have emerged.

The task force constituted to unmask why ODM did poorly in 2017 has reported that the party’s primaries have been described as the biggest vice of the party.

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Party nominations have been blamed for the weakening of the party, and the loss of many good members of the party. The party elections are thought to lack credibility and do not meet the standards of being free, fair and democratic.

The new findings accused the ODM Secretariat, the National Executive Committee and National Elections Board of running down the party by bungling primaries.

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The consequence of the bungled polls, the report states, caused mass walkouts of both supporters and aspirants, leaving ODM weakened

“The party structures, especially the NEC, NEB and the Secretariat, have been blamed for conducting their business in a manner that is not transparent and accountable and [they] are thought to be in the business of deliberately staging for the chaotic and violent elections as a way of facilitating favourites to end up as nominees of ODM for the general elections.”

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Most ODM members interviewed returned a harsh verdict on Ong’wen’s team, saying the Secretariat has failed to effectively run the core party functions.

“Grassroots party programmes are non-existent, especially outside the election season. ODM’s popularity at the grassroots is not backed with activities unless there is an election,” the report states.

Consequently, ODM may abandon universal suffrage for the Electoral College system in conducting party primaries. The new move of picking candidates for the party in elections by the use of delegates instead of elections at polling stations was suggested by the task-force.

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The report was represented to party leader Raila Odinga on Monday at a Nairobi hotel when he chaired a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting.

The task-force, chaired by lawyer Catherine Muma, argues that the current system (universal suffrage) was archaic and often resulted in violence, voter bribery beside being an expensive affair.  The team was of the opinion that if the Orange outfit trusted delegates to elect grassroots and national officials, it would also be okay if the delegates picked candidates.

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Interestingly, both Ong’wen and Pareno have been named to the three-person team to oversee implementation of the report that indicts their offices.

The internal report of the five-member team chaired by Mumma called over-reliance on Raila “a big problem”.

If the party top decision-making organ embraces the proposal, then about 58 delegates will pick the ODM’s nominee for MCA position, with the same number, being constituency delegates, picking MP nominee.

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For Governor, Senator and Women Rep positions, the number will depend on constituencies per county. For instance, Nairobi, with 17 constituencies, will have about 986 delegates, while a county like Lamu or Isiolo, with just two constituencies, will have 156 delegates.

Members interviewed considered the ODM elections a sham that led to the party’s losing strong party members. “The greatest vice of ODM is the rigged electoral system for conducting the party primaries,” said one interviewee.

ODM allegedly nominated people who did not even belong to the party, thereby causing loyal members to be disgruntled.

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