Odinga Ruto
Voters aged 35 and above will decide on who will be President Uhuru Kenyatta’s successor in the August 9 general election.
This is due to the fact that despite the youth being the majority, their number of registered voters is lower than that of the elderly, thus wont make an impact on who will be the presidential winner.
A total of 22 million voters are registered to run in this year’s elections, an increase of 12.8 compared to 19 million voters in 2017.
According to Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati, 13.3 million voters are 35 years of age and older with 8.8 million youth under the age of 34.
Presidential candidates have been targeting young people in their campaigns in the belief that they are the majority, but figures released yesterday show that the number of young registered participants has dropped by 7.8 percent compared to 2017.
Seven million people, mostly young people with national IDs, failed to register as voters, according to a KPMG voter registration check.
The figures show that women make up 49.12 percent of the electorate with 50.88 men.
The number of polling stations has also increased from 40,000 in 2017 to 46,000. This means that each polling station will have an average of 479 voters.
The IEBC chair said that the voter register would be sent to all polling stations across the country from August 2 to enable people to verify their names.
The IEBC released the data days after Presidential aspirant Dr. William Ruto raised an alarm that the voter list might have been manipulated with voters from his Mt Kenya and Rift Valley strongholds transferred.
Wafula Chebukati on Monday revealed that the incident was an inside job and the commission has identified culprits and forwarded their names to the authorities for further investigations.
Also Read: “Ruto Was Right” Chebukati Speaks on Illegal Voter Transfer in IEBC Database, Names 3 Suspects Behind it
