UDA's big day as it holds primaries in 36 counties

Leaders aligned with Deputy President William Ruto will compete for tickets in various political seats in the run-up to the August elections.

The exercise, which will traverse across 36 of the total 47 counties, will see close to 5,000 aspirants participate in the nominations.

Thirteen counties will nominate gubernatorial candidates, 18 for the Senate, and 28 for female representatives, while 13 constituencies will nominate parliamentary candidates.

DP Ruto urged all aspirants to keep the peace during the election campaign on Wednesday.

In what he called a "near-general election," he stated that all of the necessary infrastructure has been put in place to oversee a democratically run, free and fair nomination.

UDA National Elections Board (NEB) chairman Anthony Mwaura, for his part, stated that 75,000 ballot boxes had already been distributed to the various constituencies.

The primaries began at 6 a.m. and are scheduled to end at 5 p.m.

However, there have been delays reported in various polling stations, scattered across the country. 

Due to heavy rain that lasted from overnight to early morning at Thika Stadum polling station, the nomination process was yet to begin early Thursday. Only a few voters and party agents were seen waiting for the rain to stop and election materials to arrive at the polling station.

Elsewhere in Bomet, rigging claims marred the exercise after several aspirants, among them Wilson Sossion who is seeking the UDA ticket for the senator seat claimed they had intercepted suspicious, unsecured ballot boxes and ballot papers. 

The situation was not different at the MV Patel in Uasin Gishu, where the exercise was delayed, with the polling station remaining closed early Thursday. 

Voters at the venue attributed the delay to a lack of ballot papers in a spot check by Citizen TV. 

UDA nomination:

Seth Olale: There’s a slight delay in Emgwen Constituency as the ballot papers are yet to be dispersed to the various polling station#UDANominations @TrevorOmbija pic.twitter.com/MtI3B71L6R— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) April 14, 2022