By Winnie Kamau
Nairobi, Kenya: In 8 days the nation of Kenya and her citizenry will be headed to the polls on August 9.
The tempo is high as the drumbeats are hitting the highest crescendo with campaigns conducted by over 16,000 candidates vying for various posts from Presidential, Governors, Senators, Member of Parliament, Women Representatives and the Members of County Assemblies. There’s need for psycho social support of the 14,000 expected losers in the coming elections.
“We know for sure that we have over 16,000 candidates who have come out to vie for posts and I can tell you and you can take it to the bank that more than 14,000 Kenyans will loose elections” said Madam Ann Nderitu, Registrar of Political Parties in Kenya.
The Independent and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) announced the audit of the Register of Voters from the findings done by one of the audit firms, KPMG.
The number of registered voters are 22,120,458 compared to 19,611,423 who were registrered in the 2017 polls.
46,233 polling stations have been gazetted compared to 40,883 polling stations in 2017.
In 2017, 25,212,056 Kenyans were eligible voters and this year we have 27,857,598 eligible voters as verified by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data.
“The KIEMS kits are being deployed to 46,229 polling stations, down from the earlier
number of 46,233 polling stations. This was after 7 polling stations in Kimilili Constituency were merged into 3. The Commission has approved the changes for gazettement. It is important to note that there will be 6 backup KIEMS kits in each County Assembly Ward” explained Wafula Chebukati, IEBC Chairman.
The registered number of diaspora voters is 10,444 compared to 4,223 voters in 2017, while the registered number of prisoners expected to vote in a couple of days is 7,483 compared to 5,182 who were registered in 2017.
According to the audit report, Women voters represents 49.12% of voters registered and men represent 50.88% of the total voters, demonstrating that women are still underrepresented in the register of voters.
The number of youth (18-34 years old) registered to vote in 2022 stands at 39.84%
which is a decline of 5.27% against 2017. Further analysis of youth enrollment statistics
shows that the number of registered female youth voters has declined by 7.75% in the
period 2017 to 2022, while male youth enrollment has declined by 2.89%.
The enrollment rate of People With Disabilities (PWDs) stands at 18.94% of the eligible voting population with the Registration of Kenyans living is diaspora constitutes 0.05% of the register of voters.
