A major political faceoff is rearing its ugly head in the moribund Nasa coalition amid reports that ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi and his Ford Kenya counterpart Moses Wetang’ula have ganged up against ODM’s supremo Raila Odinga in the November 7 Kibra mini-election.
All indications are that ANC shall be fielding Raila’s former campaign manager, Eliud Owallo, who has since officially defected to the Mudavadi-led party, in a battle that may herald a final straw for an outfit long considered dead.
A Nairobi-based management consultant, Owallo formerly served as ODM’s strategist and Raila’s aide in the 2013 general election before unsuccessfully bidding for the ODM ticket in 2017.
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Previously quoted as faulting Raila for not backing his election bid, Owallo now says he lacks “an iota of enthusiasm” to warrant his continued stay in the orange party.
Weekly Citizen has established that Mudavadi and Wetang’ula held a six-hour meeting at an undisclosed location, where they resolved “to teach Raila a lesson” as a major statement well ahead of the 2022 elections.
It was then that Wetang’ula undertook to consolidate his party’s support for ANC against the ODM candidate, amid reports the two leaders also sought to rope in Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka in their scheme of things.
Perhaps as an indicator of the high stakes attending to the impending Mudavadi-Raila faceoff, a group of MPs from Western Kenya last week held a strategy meeting to map out strategies, with the huge number of Luhyasin the area being the focal point.
The pro-Mudavadi lawmakers look determined to capitalise on the community’s big numbers in Kibra to grab victory that will see their presence in the capital city felt, in what is now dubbed friendly fire between ANC and ODM.
The IEBC has given political parties until August 26 to submit names of individuals who will participate in their primaries. They are also expected to submit names of their candidates by September 3.
The new turn of events will certainly jolt Raila back to the drawing board, against a backdrop ODM’s trademark nomination flaws that have ended up costing the party many by-elections, the most recent being the shock twin loss in Ugenya and Embakasi South.
Mudavadi
Raila will this time round be forced by circumstances to let go of the unpopular tendency to hand direct tickets to eventual losers, with the fallen MP Ken Okoth’s brother Imran Okoth a likely casualty here.
With William Ruto said to have already identified a Luhya candidate to take on his archrival, Raila’s pick. It will be interesting to watch how things pan out in ODM’s inevitable choice of the strongest candidate.
Knowledgeable sources say the DP is fronting Walter Trenk, the chief executive of Trenk Coffee Estates, a family business that is one of the largest coffee producers in Western Kenya.
An alumnus of the prestigious London School of Economics with roots in Bungoma, Trenk – also a cricket administrator – is the chairperson of Friends of Ruto lobby, Nairobi and Kajiado chapters.
Hitherto, Raila could unilaterally elect to bequeath the ticket to the late MP’s kin – in this case Imran – ostensibly to complete the work started by his brother.
Yet, this will no longer be the case. In a notice issued by the party’s National Elections Board chairperson Judith Pareno, interested aspirants were this time round required to submit their applications before the end of business Friday last week.
This would culminate into the party’s central management committee meeting, chaired by Raila, that was expected to agree on the method to be used in selecting the candidate ahead of scheduled NEB meeting the following day, Saturday, to vet all applications.
Imran, former Embakasi South MP Irshad Sumra, former Raila aide Ketta Onyango, former ward rep Pius K’Otieno, ODM’s national youth coordinator Benson Musungu, James Agumba, an unsuccessful aspirant in 2013 and high school head teacher Joshua Orero are among those who have expressed interest in the race on the party’s platform, with ODM secretary-general Edwin Sifuna’s name also popping up.
