PHOTO/PMPS Prime Minister Raila Odinga (right) and his deputy Musalia Mudavadi at a dinner hosted for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at Mr Odinga’s Bondo home on February 19, 2012.
By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU, JULIUS SIGEI and JACOB NG'ETICH
Posted Friday, March 2 2012 at 20:49
Posted Friday, March 2 2012 at 20:49
In politics, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Perhaps nowhere has this dictum been more demonstrated than in the ongoing duel between Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy, Musalia Mudavadi, whose energised campaign for the ODM presidential ticket has rattled the country’s largest party.
Social media and bar room talk are rife with encouraging comments for Mr Mudavadi from the Rift Valley, the home of Eldoret North MP William Ruto, the other of Mr Odinga’s deputies who has fallen out sharply with his boss, stirring rabid anti-Raila sentiments from the region.
In warming up to Mr Mudavadi, the region is not necessarily falling in love with him, but Mr Ruto’s supporters are keen on spiting the Premier.
As happens in every political season, interesting myths are springing up by the day. One of them is that the Sabatia MP is actually a relation of the region’s patriarch, retired President Daniel Moi.
There are claims, which Mudavadi’s men have denied, that he is Mr Moi’s project.
And wrapping up this enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend business are reports that Mr Ruto’s closest allies, who include Cherang’any MP Joshua Kutuny and his Dujis counterpart Aden Duale, have been seen at Mr Mudavadi’s Jogoo House office several times lately, and are reporting rapprochement with the minister.
Contacted, the DPM’s spokesman Kibisu Kabatesi said: “many people visit this office every day. Mr Mudavadi is a minister and they could be coming on Local Government business.”
Meanwhile......
The pain of losing CDF
So, former MP Jimmy Angwenyi sat down with his former colleague in the august House, engineer Muriuki Karue, and they spent Sh800,000 of their own money to hire a lawyer to draft the law that gave the country the Constituency Development Fund.
Well, CDF gave Kenyans a little foretaste of what to expect in the devolved units. If you tell Mr Angwenyi that CDF will be no more, it pains him, though he is no longer an MP.
Current MPs are also pained that CDF will soon no longer exist. The MPs could, however, still push for certain grants to be utilised specifically in constituencies once the CDF is abolished after the next elections.
Party rebels
President’s pioneer party was formed to escape boredom.
The Democratic Party was mooted out of boredom, according to former Livestock Minister and DP chairman Joseph Munyao.
He told a local TV station that two decades ago, President Kibaki and his friends, John Keen, Njenga Karume and Mr Munyao, then members of Kanu, got tired of standing in a queue in Parliament waiting to vote when the idea came up to form an independent opposition party.
He said the same weekend, they met at Jacaranda Hotel to fine-tune the idea that led to the formation of the formidable party.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment