Tension is brewing in the Jubilee Party over concerns that the nomination process slated for April 21 might not be credible, free and fair.
Some of the Jubilee Party aspirants who spoke to a local daily stated that they feared that they would be locked out because of multiple interests within the party.
One of the aspirants who preferred not to be named over sensitivity of the matter told The Star that top government officials, President Uhuru Kenyatta's close allies, power brokers and party officials, had preferred candidates in various seats, hence, they fear that the nominations would not be credible.
The concerns come after the party failed to get the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s(IEBC) to conduct their primaries.
The aspirants alluded that the IEBC polling centres should be retained as party polling centres, instead of merging them as proposed by the Head of Jubilee secretariat Raphael Tuju.
Most of the worried aspirants promised to ditch Jubilee and support rival parties if they lost in the party nominations.
Earlier on, Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko had indicated that powerful forces around President Kenyatta were also trying to frustrate his bid to be the City's next Governor.
On Sunday, Mr Tuju stated that the party would benefit from the technical advice by the IEBC and that they would not leave anything to chance.
“We want to do these nominations our way and depending on the technical advice by the IEBC, we hope to get it right.
“We want to leave nothing to chance. We are already printing ballot papers after we asked aspirants to confirm their details. We will start distributing them by April 15,” Tuju stated.
The Jubilee head of secretariat also revealed that the party will recruit over 20,000 clerks who would be deployed to oversee its high-stake nominations for all elective seats in a single day.
