ODM Clarification on Sharing and Distribution of Political Parties Fund

Press Release

Our attention has been drawn to reports in the two leading dailies today attributed to the Registrar of Political Parties to the effect that we are beneficiaries of skewed allocation of the Political Parties Fund and insinuating that we are somehow ripping off our former partners in previous Coalitions. This could not be further from the truth for the following reasons.

1. For a Party to qualify for funding under the Act they must have at least 20 MPs, 3 Senators, 3 Governors and 40 MCAs elected on their ticket. Using this Criteria set out under Section 25(2) of the Act only TWO Parties, Jubilee and ODM qualified for the fund after the 2017 General Election.
2. The Registrar of Political Parties In distribution of the fund between the qualifying Parties ODM and Jubilee, is required under section 23 of the Act to take into account the TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTES received by a political party in the preceding general election. This means aggregate number of votes received by ALL the Party’s Candidates from President to M. across the Country.
3. Our former partners argued, rightly so, that they were entitled to the portion of the fund ODM would receive on account of the presidential vote for the reason that they helped campaign for ODMs Presidential Candidate Hon. Raila Odinga. They cannot however be entitled to monies due to ODM on account of the votes received by the Party’s other Candidates i.e Governors, MPs and MCAs for the simple reason that they did not campaign for these candidates and infact fielded opponents against them! This understanding was captured in both CORD and NASA Coalition Agreements. Under the CORD Agreement, ODM received and duly remitted monies received on account of the Presidential votes from the 2013 General Election.
4. However it is common knowledge that the Supreme Court nullified the results of the 2017 Presidential Election. On this basis, the Registrar of Political Parties argues she cannot take into account the August 8th 2017 Presidential results in distribution of the Fund. She has, unlawfully in our view, insisted on using the Results of the repeat election of October 26 2017 which was boycotted by the NASA Coalition.
5. ODM does not therefore receive any money on account of the presidential votes from the 2017 General Election. ODM does not therefore owe any monies to any other political party.

We have on several occasions written to the registrar to argue the case that applying the Presidential results of the repeat elections when the law demands that she apply the results of a the general election, is unlawful and that, it has resulted in a skewed allocation of the fund in favor of Jubilee but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

For avoidance of doubt, a GENERAL ELECTION is defined under Article 136(2) (a) to be the election held an the Second Tuesday in August of the Fifth Year and for the Registrar to apply any other results in distribution of the fund is manifestly unlawful.

We have challenged the Registrar as the sector regulator and administrator of the Fund to move to the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion and guidance on the right way to treat the August 2017 Presidential results when it comes to distribution of the fund, but she refuses to do so for unknown reasons.

The Registrar is under obligation further to explain these facts in detail whenever the subject comes up in public fora. It is indeed baffling and an abdication of duty that she would allow misinformation to spread and aspersions cast against the ODM Party when she has the full facts.

The Kshs. 4.1 billion arrears are amounts awarded to ODM covering the period between 2012-2016. The other Parties that would have been entitled to this award would have been The National Alliance Party (TNA), and the United Republic Party (URP), that ceased to exist. The Court Award has not been released to ODM even after a successful appeal and therefore, it is improper to impute without facts that ODM owes other parties some inconceivable funds without any basis In law or agreement.

We also confirm that to date, we have never seen or received any authenticated claim, quantified demand or even published audited accounts of any party be it Wiper, FORD-K or ANC indicating a debt owed by us.

Every political party therefore claiming monies from ODM howsoever would be advised to henceforth focus their energies on seeking a resolution of the legal question on the proper interpretation of a general election and the enforcement of the courts decisions on political party funding instead of taking the tried, tested and often lazy path of blaming ODM for everything under the sun.

We assure our members that we will continue to do that which is humanly possible including further court action to secure what is rightfully due to ODM

Edwin Sifuna, Secretary General.