INEC gets 60 new applications for registration as political parties

AHEAD of the 2019 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed  that 60 new associations have applied to the commission to be registered as political parties in the country.

The Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, disclosed this in Abuja, on Saturday, at a capacity development workshop organised by the commission for the members of its press corps

Oyekanmi stated  that the applications were at various levels of processing by the commission in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended.

According to him,“presently we have 40 political parties in the country. I can tell you that as of Thursday, December 15, 60 associations have approached the commission to be registered as political parties.

“Their applications are  presently being  attended to and they are in different level of processing.”

The chief press secretary added that eight groups had also approached the commission inquiring on the process  of applying for registration as parties.

Speaking  on Information and Communication Technology deployed for elections by INEC, Oyekanmi said that the commission was working on some value-adding projects that would improve the country’s electoral process.

He said that the projects developed by the department were expected to be launched by early 2017.

One of the projects, according to him, is the voter registration transfer portal, a centralised system that handles transfer of voters from one polling unit to another.

Others, according to him, are  voter verification portal, integrated voter register portal, and e-based Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collection directional portal that provides information to the public on how to collect their PVCs.

It will be recalled that 10 political parties were recently re-registered by INEC following court orders which earlier brought the wumber of registered parties in the country to 40.