UDA Goes to the Polls: 8 Million Voters Expected in High-Stakes Grassroots Elections

The United Democratic Alliance (UDA) is tomorrow expected to retreat to its bedrock and battleground counties for a massive Phase II repeat grassroots election, a high-stakes exercise seen as a litmus test for the ruling party’s internal cohesion. Addressing the press on Wednesday, UDA National Chairperson and Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire confirmed that the party is ready to conduct the polls across 18 counties, involving a staggering eight million registered voters. The exercise, which is a repeat of the contested Phase II polls, will cover a wide geographic spread including the Coast region, parts of Nyanza, Lower Eastern, and the Northern frontier.

In a bid to ward off the ghost of “shambolic” primaries that have historically plagued Kenyan parties, Ms. Mbarire announced that the President William Ruto-led party would stick to its digital guns. She stated that the party has deployed end-to-end technology to manage the process, noting that a total of 9,500 electronic voting tablets are already at their respective polling centres. To ensure transparency and public confidence, the Governor emphasized that results will be beamed in real-time to a public portal on the official party website. This use of technology is seen as a strategic move to minimize manual interference and disputes, which often lead to protracted legal battles within the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal.

The scale of the exercise is unprecedented for a single political party in the region. Over 450,000 candidates have registered to contest various positions at the polling centres, seeking to represent interests ranging from women and youth to farmers, religious groups, and MSME traders. With over 9,000 polling centres set to open, the party expects the exercise to produce 182,240 elected grassroots officials who will hold a direct mandate from the members.

While 17 counties—including Kisumu, Mombasa, Machakos, and Turkana—will cast their ballots tomorrow, Thursday, April 23, the party has pushed the Kajiado County polls to Saturday, April 25. Ms. Mbarire added that this exercise is central to building a party from the bottom up, ensuring that leadership is grounded in the will of the rank and file.

Voting is scheduled to commence at 8:00 AM and close at 5:00 PM. The party has so far successfully concluded elections in 25 counties, and tomorrow’s results are expected to be a significant indicator of the party’s organizational strength ahead of the 2027 general elections, as internal factions battle for control of the party’s grassroots machinery.