The UP leadership must intervene
The timetable for Candidate Nomination for the Special Senatorial election in October has been released by the National Election Commission or NEC. The process, launched Monday, June 30, begins Wednesday, July 2, and ends Thursday, July 24, 2014. The National Election Commission has already said that the nomination process will be centralized, and that all applicants for election must comply with the its Candidate Nomination Procedures by appearing in person to submit application to the Nomination Center.
In the wake of the Commission’s announcement of the timetable, duly political parties have already climaxed their primaries across the political sub-divisions of the country- the latest being the ruling Unity Party. Though the just-ended UP Primaries nation-wide regarded as politically responsible and well done, the political shocks, agonies and regrets characterizing the entire political exercise has led to public utterances by a few contestants inimical to the UP image- a situation that may not augur well if the National Executive Committee and the first partisans do not establish absolute control.
While the contestants and their supporters within the Unity Party may have their democratic rights to voice out their apprehensions, dissatisfaction or whatsoever, the first point of engagement and protest should have been the party authorities in the county and later, the National Executive Committee. But to choose the media, most especially the radio, was not only counter-productive to the principles of the party, but a complete disrespect to its National Leadership.
True partisans who subscribe to the ideals of political parties do not find themselves in such destructive politics as is being done by these individuals. Interestingly, they are partisans who went into the primaries on the basis of the guidelines, but have chosen to behave the way they did upon observing that what they thought would have happened, was not happening.
And while we do not wish to dictate to the National Leadership of the UP in terms of measures to protect the party’s image and respect it has won over the years, it must also intervene stop these individuals from desecrating its image in the eyes of the public, especially when they had agreed to all terms of the primaries in consonance with its By-Laws and Constitution.
