Prime Minister Raila Odinga over the weekend dispatched a team of Luo elders to the Rift Valley to try and negotiate a reconciliation caused by the fall out within the ODM leadership.
The elders from the Luo and Kalenjin community met for more than eight hours at the exclusive Kolol Resort in Eldoret East to discuss how to salvage the worsening relationship between leaders from the two communities.
The weekend meeting is the first direct move by Raila to breach the growing gap between him and the community leaders since differences emerged between him and suspended Higher Education minister William Ruto.
Mzee Seid Keittanyi led the delegation from the Kalenjin community which gave out a list of actions which they proposed Raila should take to fend off the influence of Ruto and his group in the region.The Luo council of elders chairman Willis Otondi led the delegation from Nyanza.
Sources at the meeting said the elders drew up ten resolutions which would see the two communities engage in dialogue for peace and political unity ahead of the 2012 polls.
The elders meeting coincided with an onslaught by PNU MPs and ODM MPs allied to Ruto against Raila and Speaker of National Assembly Kenneth Marende over the judicial nominations made by President Kibaki.
PNU MPs and those allied to Ruto are tomorrow planning to introduce a motion in Parliament to overturn a ruling made by Marende last Thursday in which he said the President had not observed the constitution when he presented his list of nominees to constitutional offices as he had not consulted with Raila as stipulated in the National Accord and Reconciliation Act.
A day later Kibaki issued a statement insisting that he acted within the constitution. He said he will wait for a ruling by a constitutional court which is expected to start hearing arguments today.
The PNU presently has the numerical strength in parliament after the ODM MPs allied to Ruto opted to change sides.
Among some of the resolutions arrived at during the weekend meeting was a request by the Kalenjin elders that Raila personally engage with the community instead of using "middlemen who are politicians interested in their own agenda.” “We know you did not come here for nothing and please take back to Raila what we have resolved so that we act on it and ensure that this group of disgruntled leaders does not continue misleading people,” Mzee Keittanyi told the Luo elders.
The meeting also agreed that Raila will have to get new political advisers within the Kalenjin community including professionals who will help to address issues which have been causing a strain between the two communities.
“We had told the PM long ago that some of the people he was dealing with were not genuine. Had we taken action at the time, they would not have ruined the party we have worked so hard to build,” Keittanyi told the Luo elders.
The Luo elders said their mission was to establish what had led to the bad relations between the leaders of the two communities. They said Raila was genuinely interested in addressing the grievances the Kalenjin community and their leaders had against him. “We are neighbours and I don’t think there is anything difficult that cannot be resolved. We will deal with all the issue and inform the PM accordingly,” Otondi told the meeting.
Rift Valley voted almost unanimously for Raila in the December 27, 2007 but the relationship between Raila and the Rift Valley leaders soured almost immediately after the formation of the coalition government.
Ruto and the MPs started accusing the PM of not championing the release of scores of youth from the region who had been arrested bypolice for allegedly participating in the post election violence and the Mau forest evictions.
Speaking in Teso where he was attending a funds-drive, Ruto said his problems with Raila started when he was the Agriculture minister and reduced the price of fertilizer to Sh2, 000 and increasing the price of maize to Sh2, 300. “The same planners and gossipers plotted my downfall to ensure that my rising popularity with farmers was curtailed,” he said.
Ruto and his allies have also accused Raila of pushing for the International Criminal Court to prosecute suspects of the 2008 post election violence instead of the matter being handled by a local tribunal. Ruto is among the six suspects named by Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Ruto presently has the support of 21 MPs from the region who have been been persuading the community to reject the ODM and throw their support to a yet to be identified party which many believe to be the United Democratic Movement.
The recent defection by Agriculture minister Dr Sally Kosgei and former Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey who were previously considered to be close Raila allies has made party's support in the region more precarious.
Raila's allies led by Jackson Kibor and Keittany have been working behind the scenes to rebuild Raila's support in the Rift Valley and are planning a series of meetings to be addressed by Raila to persuade the electorate not to ditch the ODM.
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