UDA Grassroots Elections: A Massive Field of 450,000 Candidates Prepares for Thursday’s Polls

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 22 – The political landscape is bracing for significant activity as over 450,000 candidates prepare to contest for various positions in the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) grassroots elections scheduled for Thursday, April 23.

UDA will hold its Repeat Phase II grassroots elections in eighteen counties, including Kisumu, Siaya, Migori, Kisii, Bungoma, Makueni, Machakos, Kitui, Isiolo, Marsabit, Taita Taveta, Lamu, Tana River, Kilifi, Kwale, Mombasa, and Turkana.

While addressing the media on Wednesday, the rulling party said more than 450,000 candidates, representing a variety of groups like women, young people, special interest groups, farmers, religious leaders, professionals and small-scale traders, have registered to run for 20 different posts at polling stations.

Across the country over 9,000 polling places will host the exercise, which is anticipated to draw eight million voters.

Voting is set to start at 8:00 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m. Elections are a component of the party’s larger grassroots reorganisation; comparable surveys have already been carried out in 25 counties.

“As with previous grassroots elections, we will deploy end-to-end technology to manage the process, with 9,500 electronic voting tablets already at each Polling Centre,” UDA said.

The elections results would be uploaded on the party’s website.

The initiative is projected to yield 182,240 elected grassroots representatives who will function as the foundational pillar of the party’s  grassroots outreach strategy.