The United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party has dismissed claims by the ruling Jubilee party linking its officials to illegal acquisition of membership data.
The Jubilee party recently claimed that the breakaway outfit stole its membership data to hoodwink Kenyans that it’s the largest party in the country currently.
Jubilee said it had approached Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu to have the Deputy President William Ruto-led party deregistered for breaching its database and stealing up to two million of its membership data.
But UDA, in a hard-hitting statement on Saturday, denied the claims saying the party leadership had worked from scratch to build their numbers.
“Since its inception, UDA embarked on and is conducting a vigorous recruitment of members in all the 47 counties. These activities have been ongoing with emphasis on grassroot support in tandem with our ‘Bottom-Up’ economic model approach. Our county, constituency and ward coordinators together with our robust head office team have meticulously documented thus this process to guarantee accuracy. These are records availed to and always available for audit by the Office of Registrar Of Political Parties (ORPP),” said UDA Secretary General Veronica Maina.
Jubilee Deputy Secretary General Joshua Kutuny had claimed that some former Jubilee officials stole their data and fed Ruto’s party. The Cherang’any MP revealed that some of the officials had been fired.
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But according to Maina, most of the Jubilee members who decamped to UDA did so out of frustration by the ruling party.
“We understand the panic and attempts by the Jubilee party to drag us into their party’s resuscitation efforts. For a party that embarked on a vicious and systematic purge of its own members, with high profile humiliation of parliamentary and party leadership, we are surprised that you now realize you do not have members. Your arrogance and cruelty was an effective membership mobilization for UDA,” she added.
“Jubilee, which has never held elections of their party officials, stole their countless chances to be a party of historic consequence and wasted them all on shameful displays of immaturity and shortsighted shows of might. The chickens have come home to roost.”
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UDA was unveiled less than a year ago following the fallout between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy.
The party currently boasts of 5.1 million registered members, according to the data on its website.
“We would like to take this opportunity to remind Jubilee to prepare for another mass movement of members from their party to UDA in the coming days.
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“This time around, members are using their e-citizen platforms and we can only imagine Jubilee’s reaction to this shift in the political landscape. UDA Party is also inviting our bonafide members who are over 10 million plus to confirm the status of their Jubilee Party resignations on the E-citizen platform and if need be re-apply again for the same,” Maina added.
Ruto is expected to vie for the presidency on a UDA ticket. He will battle it out with ODM leader Raila Odinga who is backed by the Jubilee party.
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