By Geoffrey Mosoku
Nairobi, Kenya: Deputy President William Ruto is expected to chair the top decision making organ of his United Republican Party ( URP) this weekend at a retreat in Naivasha.
The meeting set to start Friday morning will bring together all members of the National Executive Council (NEC) and MPs from both the Senate and National Assembly who were elected on the URPticket.
“Dear NEC/PG members; you are invited to attend aURP retreat at SOPA lodge, Naivasha on 30th and 31st August 2013. Check in time is 9am, Friday,” an invite sent by Chairman Francis Kaparo reads in part.
The statement adds that the theme of the retreat will be strengthening institutional capacity of the party.
The retreat is also set to discuss and review its position over the current emerging issues such as the question of a referendum which is being pushed by Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto.
Sources said that URP will come up with a way to confront the referendum proposal that will also be a subject of discussion with their arch-rivals Cord coalition meeting mid next month. Cord’s retreat is expected to be the weekend of 14 September.
Whereas Cord led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and ex-VP Kalonzo Musyoka is pushing for a plebiscite, the Jubilee coalition is vehemently opposed saying it will be too costly to the tax payers.
Jubilee and especially URP has severally dismissed Isaac Ruto and has been seeking for ways of silencing the outspoken governors’ council chairman. On Tuesday, the party hosted MPs and a section of county reps from Bomet at its Nairobi office that disowned the call for referendum.
This followed another meeting of NEC that took place on Monday where the party announced its two-tier strategy to sabotage the referendum by denying pro- referendum forces requisite numbers to pass the vote through.
A senior member of NEC told the Standard that the question of governor Ruto will be among the issues to be discussed with a view of devising a strategy to convince him to abandon the quest.
URP will also discuss the political impact of the absence of the deputy President when he leaves to attend to his trial at the ICC, which is set to commence on September 10.
The retreat will also approve a proposal seeking to recruit four more officials to join former Mosop MP David Koech to run the secretariat.
The recruitment will seek to appoint deputy CEO to assist Koech and three other directors of Finance, ICT & membership and party coordination.
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