Saturday, March 24, 2012

ODM must quickly amend constitution



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THE ODM party may be on the verge of a serious split. Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi may be about to go his own way leaving Prime Minister Raila Odinga as the undisputed leader of the party.
This would be unfortunate. Whatever it faults, the ODM, and Kanu, are the closest approximations Kenya has to truly national parties. The country's future stability will depend on the emergence of broad-based parties whose supporters are linked by ideology and not by ethnicity.
So Kenya needs an ODM with a broad appeal nationally. There are two disputes within ODM. The first is whether the presidential candidate should be chosen by country electoral colleges or by a national delegates conference. Mudavadi wants the former, Raila wants the latter.
Surely this can be resolved, perhaps by allowing a secret ballot supervised by the IEBC at a national delegates conference. The second split is over the ODM constitution that presently states that the party leader, Raila, is the automatic presidential candidate.
This cannot be right and it is not worth destroying the ODM to preserve this impractical and anti-democratic clause. The ODM should quickly amend its constitution to allow a competitive selection process for the presidential candidate.
Quote of the day: "Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not. God knows." - George Frideric Handel premiered his oratorio 'Messiah' in London on March 23, 1743.

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