Open Letter by Kenyan Civil Rights Activist to Director of Public Prosecutions

Mr. Keriako Tobiko,

The Director of Public Prosecutions,

19^th Floor, NSSF Building,

P. O. Box 30701-00100,

Nairobi - Kenya.

Dear Sir,

Okiya Omtatah

RE: REQUEST TO ORDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND POSSIBLE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF ALL THOSE INVOLVED IN THE FRAUDULENT REGISTRATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

We reasonably suspect that the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) presided over a shambolic process of ensuring that political parties complied with the Political Parties Act, 2011, (PPA) before they were given full registration as by law required.

Apparently, due to the total lack of due diligence and/or gross negligence on the part of the ORPP, political parties out to beat the April 30, 2012, deadline disregarded the law and simply used false party membership lists to fraudulently get registered.

For example, many Kenyans have since publicly complained that their fundamental rights and freedoms were grossly violated when they were fraudulently made members of political parties they don’t associate with, or didn’t even know existed.

Given the above facts, we reasonably suspect that the said full registrations the ORPP conferred on political parties are a product of corruption, constitute patent falsehoods, and amount to the criminal offences of fraud and perjury, for which criminal investigations and possible prosecution should be undertaken against employees of the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties and the principal officers of the offending political parties. Section 47 of the PPA declares that an offence under the PPA is cognizable by the police.

Kindly, given that forgery, perjury and all forms of corruption are serious crimes, we request that you protect the public interest by urgently exercising your powers under Article 157(4) of the Constitution to direct the Commissioner of Police to criminally investigate employees of the ORPP and the principal officers of all fully registered political parties with a view to criminally prosecuting any offenders.

Yours faithfully,

Okiya Omtatah Okoiti

Executive Director

Kenya for Justice and Development