Uhuru, Ruto to Support Mudavadi for the Presidency

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto will back Musalia Mudavadi for the presidency if they cannot stand themselves, according to informed sources. And they have privately accepted that the charges they are facing at the International Criminal Court will prevent them from standing, even if they speak differently at their prayer rallies. Even if their trial at the ICC delays until after the election, the ethics rules of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission may bar them from running.

Uhuru and Ruto have now both separately decided that Mudavadi would be the best candidate for them to back against Prime Minister Raila Odinga who is still seen as the front runner in the election now scheduled for March 2013. “I can tell you for sure that Uhuru has no problem paying back the favour Mudavadi granted him by supporting him in 2002. We have discussed this with Uhuru quietly and we have decided that Mudavadi will get our support if he goes for the big seat. After all he enjoys a lot of good will amongst the Kikuyu and the rest of the country,” said an aide to Uhuru.

Three MPs who are very close to Ruto separately confirmed that there is a plan to back Mudavadi. “We are almost certain that Ruto and Uhuru may not be in the ballot. We have no other candidate other than Mudavadi and it will not matter which party he will be in,” said one MP. Just two weeks ago, Mudavadi dismissed claims that he was a project of President Kibaki, former President Moi or G7 members. He stated that he was a project of all Kenyans.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government has been criss crossing the country meeting ODM delegates in his bid to challenge Raila for the party’s presidentialticket. Mudavadi wants the ODM candidate to be selected by county electoral colleges of ODM delegates whereas Raila favours a national delegates conference.

However Mudavadi’s bid ran into rocky ground following the discovery of a clause in the ODM constitution that guarantees the party leader the presidential ticket. A NEC meeting called two weeks ago to discuss the rules ended in a stalemate after Raila’s allies refused to remove the rule to allow Mudavadi to challenge the PM. Another NEC meeting scheduled for this week to review the issue has postponed to next week.

The Mudavadi camp believes he can beat Raila in a county by county nomination exercise with a secret ballot and presided over by the IEBC. Mudavadi’s supporters believe that a vote by acclamation at a National Delegates Conference can be manipulated. Mudavadi’s exploits have shaken Raila’s team and some are convinced that it is only a matter of time before Mudavadi ditches ODM for another party.

He is apparently considering joining Charity Ngilu’s NARC party which is being revived. Water minister Ngilu accompanied Mudavadi to meet ODM delegates in Kitui in February but did not accompany Raila when he met ODM delegates in Kitui a few days later. New Ford-Kenya officials are also considering giving Sabatia MP Mudavadi the presidential ticketinstead of Saboti MP Eugene Wamalwa to whom they had promised it. Party secretary-general Bonny Khalwale has openly said his party will back Mudavadi if he is on the presidential ballot.

The Mudavadi team is now considering setting up a presidential campaign secretariat after realising that the ODM delegates conference may not change the clause that makes the party leader the automatic presidential candidate. A team of professionals has been advising Mudavadi on his options if he is to remain relevant in Kenyan politics.

Yesterday, tensions escalated in the ODM between supporters of Raila and Mudavadi. Mudavadi’s team is now expressing anger after Raila met ODM officials in Kisii on Sunday for almost one hour to discuss party matters and the impending presidential nomination. The ODM officials arrived in Kisii in three Prados and were led by Vihiga County chairman Ken Butiko, an aspirant for the national chairmanship of Orange Young Democrats, Rashid Mohamed from Mumias and a Ben Ombina.

The 15 officials were asked to prepare delegates to travel to Nairobi when the NDC is called. “Raila made it clear to them that the ODM is not going to change any clause in the constitution and that the nomination will be done by the NDC,” a Mudavadi ally claimed. On Monday in Muranga, assistant minister Margaret Wanjiru, a Raila ally, repeated that ODM’s constitution will not be amended. “The act of secretly meeting the officials particularly the chairman of Mudavadi’s home county of Vihiga can only be taken to be a provocation to Mudavadi to quit,” ODM National Elections Board member Charles Werangai said.

The Star reported yesterday that Raila’s adviser Adhu Awiti has been pressurising delegates through his PA William Okoth. However Okoth refuted the claims saying the reports were meant to typecast Raila as intolerant. “I do not have any access to any partydocuments. I work for the PM’s office and no access whatsoever to the party registers. This malicious story is aimed at portraying as one who fears competition. The PM has always welcomed competition and that’s why he has allowed the DPM to challenge him,” Okoth said in a statement.

http://www.mwakilishi.com/content/articles/2012/03/22/uhuru-ruto-to-support-mudavadi.html

Kenyans should beware of anti-Raila forces out to stall reforms agenda

Barrack Muluka

The contradictions of politics can be breathtaking.

There is no objective goodness or badness. It all depends on who is involved.

The matter of the ICC is at once a safe subject and a polarising issue to talk about. If the indicted Kenyans accuse the court, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the British Government of conspiracy, the ICC is neither sensitive nor polarising.

If the Raila Campaign Secretariat talks about the ICC, it becomes a sensitive and polarising matter. Kenyans are advised to “be cautious about this sensitive and polarising matter”.

It is the same with political party democracy. When G7 functionaries set on fire an MP’s car because the MP has dared say “Raila Tosha,” nobody questions the democratic culture in G7.

The same is true when another car is torched in Mwingi, because the owner has abandoned Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper party to join Charity Ngilu’s Narc. However, when Raila prefers one mode of presidential candidate nomination in ODM, he is “a dictator”. One man burns another’s car.

He is a democrat. The other one prefers one mode of nomination to the other. He is a dictator. Such is Kenya in the 21st century.

Self-declared presidential aspirants from other parties have even urged ODM deputy party leader, Musalia Mudavadi, to decamp “because of dictatorship in ODM”. Their sole agenda is “to bar Raila from ascending to presidency”. Meanwhile, the PM is the object of attack from every corner.

So what is afoot? Why is the PM under such intense attack? Why would people forge papers to tell lies about him and the ICC? Why would they scream at charged political rallies about the ICC but say the matter is polarising when he talks about it? The strategy is to roll the PM through sewage. The immediate objective is to make him unelectable. But the bigger objective is to stall and reverse reforms.

Raila is the face of reforms, in spite of his own weaknesses. He must therefore be stopped, at all costs. That is why outsiders will gleefully talk about democracy in ODM without looking at their own credentials first. Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, Uhuru, Ruto, and self-declared people’s guard Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale all accuse the PM of dictatorship in ODM. Their “proof” is the on-going debate on how presidential nominations in the party should be done.

It is instructive that the people asking Raila to exercise internal democracy in ODM are themselves self-declared presidential ticket holders in their parties. It is not clear who gave them the tickets. Uhuru Kenyatta is the Kanu candidate while William Ruto is the United Republican Party (URP) candidate. Nobody is telling Kenyans how these people became their parties’ presidential nominees. Nor is Vice- President Kalonzo telling Kenyans who competed against him for the Wiper party ticket.

However, they are all presidential “nominees” for their parties and “democrats,” to boot. Together with a couple of others, these “democrats” have “vowed” to unite “to defeat one man”. That is their solitary election agenda.

The Kenyan nation is the headquarters of hypocrisy. Individuals who have unilaterally declared themselves presidential candidates in their own parties can be so brazen as to point accusatory fingers at somebody else and say, “Hey, please internalise democracy in your party”.

The truth of the matter is that the people who brought Kenya to its knees in the bad old days have regrouped. Kalonzo, Ruto, Uhuru, Prof George Saitoti, all belong to the Kanu dark corner that rode roughshod through the nation in the 1980s and 1990s. When the forces of change threatened dictatorship, they jumped ship. They passed themselves off as reformists. The storm of reform seems to be over.

They can put on their old colours and take Kenya back to the past. As in the old days, they are now able to stare you in the eye and make illogical pronouncements like, “I am the URP presidential candidate. I also call upon Raila to open up the democratic space in ODM.” A gullible nation turns a blind eye to the contradiction.

Kenyans have reached another crossroads. They must choose between reform and reversal, now that Kanu has regrouped. They must choose between impunity and the rule of law. These are the things Raila is saying. Raila is simply saying that this is Kenya’s moment. Decide now whether you will go ahead or go back. Pronouncements of this kind make some people extremely uncomfortable. They will gang up against you and spin dirty propaganda against you.

In the circumstances, reformist institutions like the IEBC and the Judiciary will need to exercise restraint, even as they grope for space. We are coming from a history of institutional abuse. When we see the same forces that abused our institutions regrouped and calling for “unity,” those of us who were old enough to see Kanu in its element must get afraid, very afraid. We do not want to smell the slightest whiff of indiscretion in the IEBC or in the courts. Is that too much to ask for?

I should have been impressed to see the PM caught on a video recording, intimidating the IEBC. Instead, I saw IEBC officials on video, claiming that they had been intimidated. A gullible, or perhaps even complicit, media fraternity picked this up and went to town with it as “proof” that the commissioners had been intimidated. If you did not witness the transformation of Kenya’s politics during the period 1965 to 1988, you will probably have to wait and feel the impact of a regrouped Kanu whip on your body. It began exactly the way it is happening today.

The true heroes of the nation were isolated and corned. They were boxed and demonized. Kung’u Karumba, Achieng’ Oneko, Wasonga Sijeyo, Bildad Kagia, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. The villains became the heroes. The door to impunity was thrown wide open. To pave the way, the citizens were fed on the narcotising drug of ethnicity. They did not mind the villains, provided they were from their tribe. We are watching history repeat itself. If you have been asking what the trouble is with Raila Odinga, ask no more.

The writer is a publishing editor and media consultant

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/columnists/InsidePage.php?id=2000054756&cid=&currentPage=2