Photo/FILE Prime Minister Raila Odinga (right) with suspended Higher Education minister William Ruto.
By JULIUS SIGEI juliussigei@gmail.com
Posted Saturday, July 9 2011 at 16:23
Posted Saturday, July 9 2011 at 16:23
As the battle between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and suspended Higher Education minister William Ruto heads back to the courts on Tuesday, opinion is divided over ODM’s move to quash the nomination of rebel councillors.
Whereas politicians allied to Mr Odinga have welcomed the move as necessary to instil party discipline, those supporting Mr Ruto view it as a desperate move to punish people holding a different political opinion.
At a press conference last Thursday, Dujis MP Aden Duale said ODM’s move to take the war to councillors would backfire.
“This will make Raila even more unpopular because, when you take the war to the grassroots, you expect to be fought,” said Mr Duale.
He said Chapter 38 on the Bill of Rights guarantees political rights while the Political Parties Act is clear on which grounds an MP or councillor can lose a seat.
“The ODM constitution allows members to hold different opinions. All this goes to confirm what we have always said about the dictatorial tendencies of the party. But we are not worried at all,” the MP said.
However, Defence assistant minister Joseph Nkaissery, who is also ODM’s deputy treasurer, said the Orange party leadership had given the rebels plenty of time to toe the line but instead they abused the “magnanimity”.
ODM parliamentary secretary Ababu Namwamba has maintained there is a difference between dissent and rebellion; democracy and anarchy.
“I, too, have in the past differed with my party leader on specific issues in principle, but what these leaders are practising is pure anarchy,” he told the Sunday Nation in an earlier interview.
ODM’s move is said to be part of preparations for next year’s General Election which include a new-look Pentagon which will have such leaders as Mr Najib Balala, Mrs Sally Kosgei and Franklin Bett as some of the regional kingpins.
But the difference in opinion is not confined to politicians. Political scientist Prof Macharia Munene of the United States International University said ODM’s move was not good for democracy.
“A party that claims to be democratic should not engage in acts which paint it as dictatorial.
“Now it has fallen into the trap of those who have been claiming it has gone back to the Kanu days of the dreaded Okiki Amayo,” said the professor of international relations.
Mr Amayo chaired the Kanu disciplinary committee in the one-party era. Expulsion from the party meant an end to a political career since Kenya was a one-party state.
Prof Munene said it was interesting that Mr Odinga was having a taste of his own medicine, having himself rocked Narc from within during the first Kibaki administration.
However, another analyst, Prof Peter Simatei of Moi University, said ODM’s move was strategic and politically expedient.
“The party thinks the positions held by Ruto-allied councillors can be used to reward genuine supporters however small their number.
“The move may not significantly alter the political equation but ODM has realised it has nothing to lose and could as well gain from those the party will pick to replace the UDM-bound politicians,” he said.
Prof Simatei said the Ruto allies might want to take advantage and harden their supporters’ resolve even more but may not move those still supporting the party.
His sentiments were shared by University of Nairobi lecturer Adams Oloo who said: “Raila knows well enough what havoc moles can cause from within.
“He himself brought Kanu to its knees in a few months after joining it prior to the 2002 General Election.”
He said the war in ODM was now no-holds barred and suggested that was the reason Tourism minister Najib Balala and his Agriculture counterpart Sally Kosgei recently appeared to return to Mr Odinga’s fold.
“They might have been threatened with a sack in an impending Cabinet reshuffle,” said Dr Oloo.
Other pundits see the problems in ODM as a failure of the country to adopt the tenets of multi-party democracy.
“The current debate should not really be an issue. In a functioning multi-party dispensation, politicians who have been propagating agenda and policies of other parties other than those which gave them their seats should have resigned ages ago,” said Masinde Muliro University don Prof Egara Kabaji.
Meanwhile, some of the councillors who had been earmarked to lose their nomination slots claim they are genuine ODM supporters.
Councillors Hassan Kirui and Richard Sigei of Chepalungu told the Sunday Nation on Friday that they were singled out for punishment because of their MP’s hardline position.
“It does not follow that because an MP is considered a rebel all councillors in his constituency are with him.
Nominated councillors in Bomet and Sotik constituencies where the MPs are considered the PM’s allies were spared irrespective of their personal political inclinations,” said Mr Kirui, adding that he and his colleague were chairmen of their respective ODM locational offices.
The move to kick out the councillors ran into headwinds after the Interim Independent Electoral Commission stood in the way.
Sparked protest
IIEC chairman Issack Hassan recalled names of 50 councillors ODM had forwarded to the Registrar of Political Parties for de-nomination, sparking a protest from ODM secretary-general Anyang’ Nyong’o.
Mr Hassan’s move was said to have been prompted by errors in the list which had included some councillors who were not ODM members.
He said last Friday that the commission had communicated to the ODM secretariat the circumstances which led to the recalling of the list and hoped that the issue will now be resolved as guided by the law.
Mr Ruto and Mr Duale joined forces with a number of councillors and went to court last Wednesday to stop the move.
Lady Justice Jeanne Gacheche certified the case as urgent and has scheduled an inter-parties hearing for Tuesday.
It remains to be seen what the country’s largest party’s next move will be as it readies itself for an all-out war next year with the G-7 political grouping coalescing around Mr Kenyatta, Mr Ruto, V-P Kalonzo Musyoka, Trade minister Chirau Mwakwere and a host of other leaders from across the country who see Mr Odinga as their common enemy.
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