NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 19 — The leadership wrangles that saw Members of the County Assembly of Kericho engage in a fight have been resolved during a meeting presided over by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Thursday.
Speaking to news reporters outside his Harambee Annex office, Gachagua said the issues had been resolved to the satisfaction of all leaders and Members.
“In the meeting the issue of the leadership of the House of the Assembly has been resolved to the satisfaction of each and every member. As a result, elections have been held and results were accepted by all present,” he said.
The Deputy President further unveiled a new line up of the leadership at the County led by Philip Rono as the Majority leader.
“Deputy Majority leader will be Fancy Korir, Majority Whip will be Aaron Rotich while deputy Majority Whip will be Bavina Serem,” DP Gachagua announced.
He further called on all members of the ruling United Democratic Alliance Party (UDA) to use the laid down conflict resolution mechanisms whenever issues arise to avoid embarrassing the party in the future as it was the case in Kericho.
“Elections are over, and we have a responsibility to the people of Kenya to fast track development. We want where there are issues, the party mechanism is available to help members to solve them without going to the embarrassing situation we witnessed in Kericho,” Gachagua said.
“Such situations are unacceptable because the UDA Party is the ruling party and is led by the President and therefore, we cannot allow such embarrassment anywhere in in the country.”
Ruto’s warning
The meeting came days after President William Ruto condemned the chaos and called out the MCAs for being insensitive to the pressing challenges requiring their attention.
“I am seeing there are leaders who are still focused on leadership positions. I want to tell Kericho MCAs to stop this nonsense. We do not want this kind of games,” a Ruto warned.
“We want all elected leaders to start planning on development projects not fighting over leadership positions,” President Ruto advised.
He called on all Members of the County Assemblies across the Country to shun from unnecessary fights either with the executive or among themselves saying it will only drag county developments behind.
“Let us therefore focus on working together as elected leaders and stop wasting time on unnecessary and small fights at the expense of those who trusted and bestowed leadership on us. We are here to serve them and that should be our priority.”
A fight among MCAs arose following the adoption by the Speaker of a list of House leaders as directed by the High Court on January 12.
A video of the members fighting went viral on social media.
The court had ordered the reinstatement of Londiani ward MCA Vincent Korir who had earlier been replaced by Paul Chirchir as Majority Leader.
Korir had moved to court to challenge the picking of Chirchir despite the UDA Secretary General Veronica Maina saying changes agreed upon during a recent meeting at a Nakuru hotel as final.
During the meeting, nominated MCA Fancy Korir was picked as Deputy Majority Leader while Kapsuser Ward MCA Peter Kemoi was named Chief Whip.
Nominated MCA Bavina Serem was designated Deputy Chief Whip.
The MCAs disagreed over the list leading to a chaotic session as members engaged in rowdy behavior with some breaking tables and chairs while some unsuccessfully attempted to go for the mace in an attempt to nullify the proceedings.
