Friday, August 5, 2011

Cracks appear in Uhuru, Ruto, Kalonzo 2012 alliance

Cracks appear in Uhuru, Ruto, Kalonzo 2012 alliance

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Share/Save/Bookmark The political alliance bringing together Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Eldoret North MP William Ruto is reportedly beginning to crack, mainly due to the expectation by each of them that he will be the presidential candidate. The three leaders who have been operating under the G7 Alliance have developed deep-rooted mistrust for each other and are all considering going it alone in the coming elections.
So bad is the situation that leaders from Central region have called a meeting this morning at KCB Training College in Karen to discuss their political future. Today's meeting follows another held last night at Mamba Village in Karen by close allies of the Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.
Sources at that meeting told The Star last evening that they had agreed that Uhuru should abandon Kanu and take over a new party to be identified shortly. Uhuru is said to have declined an offer to take over a newly registered party, United Democratic Front. The KCB meeting will among other things discuss and agree on which party Uhuru should contest the presidential election if the International Criminal Court does not confirm crimes against humanity charges he is facing.
The ICC is due to decide next month whether he and five others will be tried for the crimes. The others are ODM Deputy Leader William Ruto, Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey, Head of the Public Service Francis Muthaura, Post Master-General Hussein Ali and Kass FM presenter Joshua arap Sang. Last week while on a tour of Rift Valley Kalonzo told G7 leaders that they need to go into the next election with one candidate otherwise they will be whipped by Prime Minister Raila Odinga who has continued to lead in opinion polls.
Uhuru's people however believe Kalonzo will insist on being the G7 presidential candidate and will easily walk out of the alliance if he is not selected. If that happened, it would undermine the chances of either Uhuru or Ruto winning the presidency. "He may do what he did to Raila (walk out) in the last election because he believes he is the best candidate even though opinion polls are very clear that Uhuru is the most popular candidate within the Alliance," said Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Uhuru's close ally Kareke Mbiuki.
Leaders from Rift Valley have made it clear that they will back Ruto to the last man if he goes for the Presidency. "All we know is that Ruto is the best candidate for the Alliance and we are backing him for the seat. We supported Uhuru in 2002 and Raila in 2007; it is our turn now and Ruto is our man," said Cherengany MP Joshua Kuttuny.
Ruto’s key advisers are not comfortable with the proposal for him to be the Deputy Prime Minister's running mate. They want him to ask Uhuru to instead back him in reciprocation for the Kalenjin support in 2002 when Uhuru ran on the Kanu ticket but lost to President Kibaki.
Ruto supporters are worried that the Kalenjin vote could potentially be divided if the suspended Higher Education Minister plays second fiddle to Uhuru in 2012. “We have taken a break to deal with some of the emerging issues and scenarios ahead of the 2012 polls. Our advisers are working on finer details which will be discussed before we move on,” said one MP allied to Ruto.
Ruto has deliberately been touring the country drumming up support for himself and his new party UDM. He has also held several strategy meetings at both his Karen and Eldoret homes to discuss the 2012 elections.  The three have also considered running separately in order to split the national vote and take majority votes from their communities. In the event of a run-off with Raila, the three would then back the one among them that had the highest number of votes for a run-off.

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