Raila reaches out to poll losers

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By ISAAC ONGIRI iongiri@ke.nationmedia.com and JUSTUS WANGA newsdesk@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Thursday, August 30  2012 at  22:00

IN SUMMARY

• PM’s party faces stiff competition from Kanu nominee after fallout in the nomination process

Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called a crisis meeting with 22 ODM aspirants who lost in the party nominations for the Ndhiwa by-election to rally their support behind winner Augustinho Neto.

This is after some of them threatened to support the Kanu candidate, Mr Tom Alila, to protest the alleged bungling of the nominations.

The rebellion against Mr Odinga’s party was on Thursday building after some of the aspirants told theNation they will boycott the meeting called by the party leader in Kisumu.

ODM is facing an unusual threat from Kanu candidate Mr Alila after 16 of the 22 who contested declared they will support him against the ODM nominee Mr Neto.

Insiders revealed that the party has run into panic following a political situation report from the National Security Intelligence Service indicating that the Kanu candidate may have a head-start if the protests persist.

Campaign for candidate

Mr Odinga will also tour Ndhiwa to campaign for Mr Neto.

On Thursday the Homa Bay County ODM branch secretary, Mr James Rege, confirmed that the PM will be meeting all the aspirants on Friday to brainstorm on the Ndhiwa by-elections.

“We are not calling them because we are losing but because we want a united approach by all our supporters in these by-elections. The NSIS report is propaganda and we are not worried about it,” Mr Rege said.

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Mr Ogutu Kale and Mr Jeremiah Owiti who are among the protesting losers said they would not attend the meeting in Kisumu.

“We cannot be coerced to support an unpopular candidate hand-picked against the will of the people,” Mr Kale stated.

On Thursday Mr Alila confirmed he was working with the protesting candidates.

“We all support Mr Odinga’s quest for presidency. But today we are requesting him to allow the people of Ndhiwa to decide,” Mr Alila said.

But ODM communications director Philip Etale said the meeting was meant to “discuss in-house issues”.

“There are outstanding party issues the Premier will be discussing with them. He will also seek to dispel media reports that this group had resorted to supporting an individual sponsored by another party,” he stated.

Mr Etale said all those who had expressed interest in the Ndhiwa parliamentary seat had confirmed attendance to the closed door meeting today.