Raila, Mudavadi hold joint campaign in Kisumu

By Kepher Otieno

For the first time Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Musalia Mudavadi held a joint ODM presidential nomination campaign in Kisumu in a show of party unity.

The two, who are competing for ODM’s ticket, moved to diffuse tension, pledging to work together despite the competitive nominations.

Both resolved before hundreds of ODM delegates that they will maintain unity through to the ballot and that no amount of political intrigues will pull them a part.

Raila cautioned ODM adversaries to stop snooping into the party affairs saying they, too, had differences in their parties and should not see ODM as the only one riddled into problems.

"Some of them speak as saints yet even their own parties had incessant squabbles even worse than ODM. We won’t allow people to limit and define our cause,’’ said Raila.

The PM maintained that ODM was committed to perfect internal democracy and that is why they had even agreed to expunge the controversial clause on Presidential nominations.

The leaders’ meeting came hardly a day after the National Executive Council(NEC) met in Nairobi and resolved to change the nominations rules that declares the party leader an automatic Presidential candidate leaving it open to all.

"This is the internal democracy that we as a party would want to perpetuate. We want to serve as the spring board to democracy in Kenya, that others, too, would emulate,’’ he said.

Raila and Mudavadi both re-affirmed potent commitment to the party ideas and declared that ODM had resolved to go for Presidency and it was the party to watch.

Mudavadi warned that the political landscape in Kenya had changed completely and that transitional 2012 politics will no longer be the same as it was in the last general elections.

He told ODM delegates not to be carried away by euphoria and work hard to woe each other to support the party claim Presidency and implement the devolution policies which were their brain child.

The DPM, expressed fears that unless the party stalwarts changed tact and reproached those who were making provocative statements that only scared others from the party, then ODM would regret the impacts.

"People must ride the wave of change or else they will find themselves beneath it. Some have said I am adopted in ODM. I’m not. If I was my legitimacy would have been threatened. But I am in ODM by right of association,’’ said Mudavadi.

He told those who were thinking that the party’s unity will collapse and were busy casting doom hoping that they will fall out with the PM that they could wait for ages.

"This is why I insist that ODM must adjust to come to terms with realities heralded by the new constitution that had completely altered the political landscape,’’ he said.