Voter Registration Deadline: Has IEBC Failed?

The one month-long voter registration exercise comes to an end today, Tuesday 14th February 2017, amid calls for the electoral body to extend the timeline for the process.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has remained adamant that no extra minute will be added given the packed schedule they have to the August polls.

By the end of last week, the electoral body had only managed to register slightly above 2.4 million new voters way below its original target.

IEBC had plans to register a total of six million new voters but as the exercise comes to an end, the body seems to have missed the target.

Opposition leaders have been vocal on calling on the commission to extend the exercise for two weeks or more so as to enable those who have not registered as voters to do so.

There has been a meagre number of Kenyans who turned out to register as voters raising concerns over a wide spread of voter apathy across the country.

The voter registration exercise came at a time when the country was in the middle of the longest doctor’s strike that has just entered its 72nd day, the dons who are still on strike as well as the ongoing drought across the country that has now affected more than three million Kenyans.

Some schools of thought have emerged in trying to explain reasons as to why very few Kenyans came out to register as voter despite the efforts by politicians who brought out all their machineries, vowing to outdo each other in registering volumes of voters.

One school of thought says that Kenyans are tired of the administration in power which has been marred with massive corruption with no known suspects behind bars.

Another school of thought says that Kenyans might have been angered by the decision of the political class to give voter registration exercise a priority over other urgent matters such as the ongoing doctors strike.

Yet another school of thought says that the young, who are the majority were not properly reached and probably given a reason why they should register as voters.

As the speculations go on within and without the political arena, the exercise has come to an end with the worry now being about if the people who have registered will will turn up during the election day.

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