President Uhuru Kenyatta will visit all the counties to popularise his 2017 reelection vehicle — the Jubilee Party.
This will happen towards the end of the year and early next year as JP seeks to establish its footprint across the country.
Officials confirmed plans are underway to ensure the parties that dissolved last week agree on the officials.
“If it is a place like Nyeri, where you have GNU and TNA as the main parties, the two will agree on who the officials are. The same applies in Western Kenya, where we had NFK and UDF,” an official told the Star.
He added that once the county offices are established, Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto will open JP offices.
According to the plan, the 47 county chairpersons will form the Jubilee Party National Governing Council, which will be the top organ of the party.
“The officials at the county level, just like in the National Executive Committee, will not be aspirants or sitting elected leaders. We want to run the party at the county level, including the nominations for the 2017 elections,” the source said.
Two politicians drawn from each of the former eight provinces will join Uhuru and Ruto to form the National Oversight Board, a similar arrangement to TNA’s in 2013.
Officials from the Jubilee Alliance Party, which changed its name to Jubilee Party, have taken over as the National Executive Committee on an interim basis.
“However, those of us who are seeking to be elected, like Nixon Korir (executive director), will have to pave way so that we can accommodate the rest of the dissolved parties,” a party official said. The Registrar of Political Parties said the certificates of the dissolved parties have been withdrawn and only JAP, renamed as JP, remains.
“The registration of the dissolved parties is withdrawn and certificates of registration cancelled as required by law,” said registrar of political parties Lucy Ndung’u.
She added that she will gazette the dissolution of the merged parties within seven days, from the day of the merger, and issue a certificate of full registration to JP.
The law requires that particulars of the merged and dissolved parties, including names, symbol, logo, slogan and colours be removed from the register of political parties.
Such particulars shall not be available for registration by any person as a political party in the subsequent election following the merger.