Ruto's ICC visit to feature at ODM Naivasha retreat

By Peter Opiyo
The fate of Eldoret North MP William Ruto in ODM as the deputy party leader will be among the issues party MPs will discuss at their Naivasha retreat.
Seventy ODM MPs arrived at the hotel yesterday for a retreat that has been boycotted by MPs allied to the suspended Higher Education minister.
Ruto, who is expected back from The Hague tomorrow, will be part of the agenda.
ODM legislators allied to Prime Minister Raila Odinga will discuss, among other issues, the need to replace rebel MPs led by Ruto.
Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang said Ruto had already left the party because he had indicated as much.
Other party members who declined to be named also said the Eldoret MP should be disciplined for going against the party principles.
The MPs spoke to journalists before Raila arrived and told them that Ruto would keep his position in the party because he had not tendered a written resignation.
Ruto recently announced that he would be identifying a new party to use for his 2012 presidential campaign.
Raila said ODM is reorganising itself ahead of the 2012 General Election and maintained that it was still the party to reckon with in the country.
In the expected reorganization, the Orange party will hold its party elections and convene a national delegates conference early next year and also amend its constitution to enable the party reach out to the youth and women.
The PM dismissed "the perceived rebellion" by MPs allied to Ruto and assured supporters that ODM is a united party.
"To align the party to the changing political and demographic environment, it is inevitable the party gets rejuvenated and revamped," said the PM.
He said Ruto was still the deputy party leader and that he remains so as he has not written to the party or shown any intention to leave.
Mass Action
"Rebels don’t exist here, we have no party rebels. We are talking about party unity and not party disunity," said Raila at the Great Rift Valley Lodge in Naivasha.
The PM said experience has shown that when parties go into coalitions, they tend to be submerged and ODM is aware of this fact and will ensure it increases its numerical strength.
Raila said the MPs will not discuss events going at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
He also denied that the party was preparing to defend itself against allegations that it incited the youth into mass action after the disputed presidential elections in December 2007.
The ODM leader further denied that ICC had requested to be given minutes of the Pentagon leaders meeting where mass action was discussed.
He said such minutes do not exist nobody has asked for them.
Recently, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought minutes of security meetings of top government officials, MPs allied to Ruto, also demanded that ODM’s top brass, the Pentagon also avail its minutes, claiming the organ also played a role in the violence.
The Cabinet agreed to vet the minutes before handing them over to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.