Politics of Direct Tickets

Abstract

On the 11th day of December 1963 Kenya’s founding father Jomo Kenyatta received the articles of independence at a ceremony in Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi in front of jubilant Kenyans who numbered 200,000, the Duke of Edinburgh and Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys. At midnight of that night, the Union Jack was lowered seeing the raising of the black, red and green Kenyan flag. As Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o said that history is not written in paragraphs grant me the latitude to do him an injustice by tracing the history of political parties in Kenya in a few paragraphs. To that extent this paper looks into the history of political parties since independence, direct issuance of tickets by political parties to candidates and the effects of such direct tickets. It argues, amongst other things, that issuance of direct tickets by political parties disenfranchises the electorate.

Keywords: Politics, direct, tickets, nominations, parties

JEL Classification: K