ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY
STATEMENT ON ATTEMPTED DE-REGISTRATION OF UKWELI PARTY BY THE ORPP
Issued by the Sungu Oyoo Campaign Secretariat
Nairobi – 4 January 2026.
Comrades and compatriots,
You may already have received the news that the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) has issued a letter outlining intent to de-register and expunge our beloved party, Ukweli Party, from the list of fully registered political parties in Kenya. We at Ukweli Party take this earliest opportunity to remind the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties that Ukweli Party is a party of the people, and that the people are the motive force of history.
As we were celebrating Christmas, the anti-people forces that are currently in power were plotting against Ukweli Party.
This attempt at de-registering our Party is not just an attack on Ukweli Party. This is an assault on progressive parties that are viewed as the natural political homes for young progressive Kenyans, especially the Gen-Z’s, as we approach the 2027 elections. The UDA government is trying to make sure that Kenyan youth have no viable political home so they can be herded into baronial parties that serve as political vehicles of the elite who use political power to safeguard their economic interests, while offering no material gains such as healthcare or proper education to the people of Kenya.
This latest move by the ORPP is an assault on the multiparty political dispensation that exists in Kenya, and under which Ukweli Party was founded in 2017. It is an assault on democracy itself, and the democratic ideals that have been at the centre of our party and its organs over the past decade.
We wish to make it clear that this assault did not begin with the issuance of this letter dated 12/01/2026. It began more than three years ago when the ORPP gave the green-light for the Ruto-led UDA to use our gazetted party colors – yellow and green – which have been the Ukweli Party colors since the party was registered in 2017. The ORPP thereafter asked UP to look for new colors, which we have resented in practice principle. ORPP cannot ask Ukweli Party to give up its colors just because the Registrar chose the side of UDA where they were supposed to be impartial.
Why is the ORPP trying to de-register Ukweli Party? Why is the ORPP trying to de-register a party of the youth? Who is pulling the strings from behind the curtains? In 2025, an organic process from within Ukweli Party produced two presidential aspirants, a testimony to the democratic ideals that the membership hold close to their hearts. It is the party on whose ticket a clear majority of young aspirants for Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Parliamentary, and MCA seats have announced an intention to contest the 2027 elections.
That is why we wish to bring to the immediate attention of the nation that the ORPP is acting as part of a wider scheme. This scheme is spearheaded by UDA to ensure a steady slide back to a limited electoral dispensation that appears democratic from afar, but whose outcome already is pre-determined. We who believe in democracy shall not allow this!!
At this particular moment, we at Ukweli Party firmly believe that the ORPP as an institution is a negation of democracy – for it is stifling democracy, as opposed to helping in the expansion of democratic space. That is why we today declare that “No matter how long a frog stays in water, it cannot turn into a crocodile”. The ORPP is second only to the Finance Bill of 2024 in terms of the catastrophes that we are today forced to straddle as a nation.
To the general membership of our beloved party:
We must defend the democratic dispensation in Kenya. We must stand in defense of Ukweli Party in such times of adversity. We must continue with our forward march into history, with our eyes firmly set on our shared generational aspirations of a new republic which guarantees freedom, peace, justice and dignity as outlined in the Ukweli Charter – for history is created by those who stand up to tyranny. Our Gen-Z’s showed us in 2024 and in 2025 and they continue to do so.
To the general membership, we have not only a generational responsibility, but also a historical responsibility to save Ukweli Party from the assault we’re now facing. There is a reason behind this assault: a scheme to derail the moral and political force that UP is against the politics of theft and death that continue to harm WE, the people of Kenya.
This party was established in 2017 after years of organising and mobilising. When we went to the streets in 2024 as Kenyan youth, the political institutions in this country told us to seek power through legitimate means. When members of Ukweli Party, and especially young Kenyans, announced intent to contest the 2027 elections, the UDA-Ruto government panicked like a cornered thief and resorted to dirty tricks and instructed the ORPP to target Ukweli Party for intimidation.
We have in these recent days fully understood the formula behind this attack. And so, while our lawyers pursue legal action through the courts and the Political Parties Tribunal, the membership and party branches must prepare for a decisive battle to protect Ukweli Party. This battle will be long, messy, crazy, noisy and beautiful.
We will use all constitutionally guaranteed avenues, including our right to protest as outlined under Article 37 of the CoK (2010) to save our Party. We shall paralyze operations at the ORPP until our party is handed back to us. In this regard, we will be announcing a political programme of action within the next few days.
We ask all Kenyans to extend solidarity to Ukweli Party in this moment of great difficulty. We ask all Kenyans of goodwill to join Ukweli Party not only in the legal corridors but also on the streets in this collective effort aimed at safeguarding our democracy.
No retreat, no surrender!!
Sungu Oyoo – Comrade President
Nairobi, 6 February 2026.