Political Parties urged to set up structures to solve disputes

Registrar of Political parties Ann Nderitu has told political parties to set out structures in such a way that disputes are solved as quickly as possible when they arise. 

Nderitu said there should be a lot of dialogue and negotiations within political parties to reduce cases of disputes within the parties.

“We should be able to manage individuals within political parties to understand what the dispute is all about first before we let the dispute go beyond political parties and that calls for dialogue and knowledge sharing,” Nderitu said.

She spoke when she officially opened Training of Political Parties Internal Disputes Resolution Mechanism Committees at a Machakos hotel.

“We came here in Machakos to train the internal dispute resolution mechanism committee members.  The committees are required and anchored in the political parties constitution so that should there be a dispute, the first point of reference in terms of addressing the dispute is the political parties itself,” Nderitu said.

85 participants from all the 85 political parties attended.

“With the amendment of the new law we wanted to enlighten political parties on the importance of establishing the internal dispute resolution Committees and some of their members are undertaking training. They have been trained on various issues including election codes of political parties as they prepare themselves for party primaries ahead of the general election so that they run their businesses in better ways and in compliance with the law,” Nderitu added.

Nderitu said the parties were also educated on the provisions of the act according to the amendment act to be clear on what they should do in case of disputes together with PPDT because disputes that move from the internal dispute resolution Committees spill over to PPDT.

She said PPDT had been given the mandate to address the disputes if not resolved at party levels.