Jubilee

President Uhuru Kenya and his deputy William Ruto at a past event. 

| File | Nation Media Group

Is Jubilee Party dead or dying?

What you need to know:

  • The DP  is associated with the United Democratic Alliance, which on Thursday bagged its first seat in London ward, Nakuru County.
  • Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju says much as he wants unity, those who have outgrown the party should leave peacefully.

The Jubilee Party has fired a warning shot at Deputy President William Ruto and his ‘Hustler’ brigade over their internal rebellion. The DP  is associated with the United Democratic Alliance, which on Thursday bagged its first seat in London ward, Nakuru County. Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju says much as he wants unity, those who have outgrown the party should leave peacefully.

Jubilee Party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju

Jubilee Party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju. 

Photo credit: Jeff Angote | Nation Media Group

Whereas President Kenyatta is reaching out to leaders across the political divide for unity, his deputy has openly become defiant and continues to lead a parallel faction within his administration. Comment.

I have always tried to avoid discussing the position of Deputy Party Leader. At a level of Secretary General of Jubilee Party, I should not be adding fuel to the fire. I should be trying to extinguish it. We want to include everyone and bring all Kenyans together and build the party, but when people become so intransigent and sometimes openly abusive then it becomes no longer tenable. We should move away from ethnic-based politics because when it is so ethnicised, every ethnic group is not creating a political movement but a political cult.

We don’t want a situation where despite having very important and useful developments proposed for example by BBI, because the cult leader says no, everybody else objects to it.

Should those unhappy in Jubilee leave?

When people are dishonest, they look for technicalities. If you are honest you just come out and resign and go for re-election and win if at all you are popular. But if you are dishonest you start looking for technicalities. ODM leader Raila Odinga did in 1994 when he resigned from Ford Kenya and sought a fresh mandate through National Development Party and won. Jubilee critics should also follow suit.

In 1966, former Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Mr Odinga’s father, also relinquished his position and quit Kanu to form the Kenya Peoples Union (KPU).

We are not ready to dwell so much on the technicalities surrounding the DP’s association with UDA party as there are other pressing issues to address. The things we have to deal with as government are so many and so important in magnitude in comparison to revisiting our agreement so that we can chase some guys away. Technically, we can do that but really is it ok as a government that we keep on chasing our tail?

Do you then advocate the purge on the DP’s allies?

Whereas the party does not take pride in kicking out members, circumstances have compelled us to do so. By the time you see us taking action against any renegade party officials, it is not something that we do gleefully. By the time we take action against any individual it’s because they have created a situation which is almost untenable. I would issue a circular and the deputy Secretary General (Caleb Kositany) would take letterheads and issue a counter circular. We tolerated it for more than a year but what options did he leave us? We exercised a lot of patience and a lot of tolerance before we made that decision to kick him out.

So you try your best to be accommodative, to be patient and see if there is any room for correction of that approach they have taken and it took more than a year. So by the time a decision is made, they have made it no longer tenable for them to occupy that position.

 We had no intention of removing (Murang’a Senator Irungu) Kang’ata as Majority Whip but then we would have meetings as leadership and he’d go out and leak the information. It was not that the party really wanted him out but the collective leadership said it was impossible to work with this guy who cannot keep secrets. He cannot kiss and tell and expect to maintain the friendship.

Have any of the UDA-associated legislators halted their monthly contributions to the Jubilee party?

We have not received any notice from the clerk of the National assembly or any of the county assemblies of the withdrawal of any Jubilee member from submitting their Monthly contribution. Consequently, we have not received any reduction from the amount of money we receive from our members.

There is a need for accountable leadership and should the legislators go ahead to starve the party of funds, the law would be applicable to deal with the situation. There is the Political Parties Act which addresses those issues and the contractual obligations they signed for when they were nominated by the party.

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Caleb Kositany

Soy MP Caleb Kositany during an interview in Eldoret town, Uasin Gishu County on March 6, 2021. 

Photo credit: Jared Nyataya | Nation Media Group


The DP’s last man standing, his de facto spokesman and Jubilee deputy secretary-general Caleb Kositany, has been kicked out of office. He speaks on the future of the party, the Hustler Nation and why Dr Ruto won’t lead a ‘No’ campaign against the BBI law changes

Is the Jubilee Party dead?
Jubilee is dead because those running it have resorted to dictatorship, intimidation, disrespecting the rule of law.

Who should be blamed?
We need to ask President Uhuru Kenyatta what exactly he wants. I have never seen anywhere in the world a president who has served his constitutional terms hitting the campaign trail for nothing.

President Kenyatta has been categorical that people should desist from 2022 succession campaigns but rather focus on the Building Bridges Initiative to cure the country’s challenges. Why do you say he is campaigning?

What is BBI and what is in it that cannot wait or that has become a crime that if you do not support it, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and Ethics and Ant-Corruption Commission are unleashed on you?
I do not see any emergency and no need whatsoever to change the constitution now and, more so, it is being spearheaded by someone whose term is coming to an end.   If what they want to solve with this BBI is the issue of who wins it all, then let us go back to the single party system.  

Now that you have been axed as the Jubilee Deputy Secretary General, do you feel exposed?

I am not exposed and I will be challenging my removal tomorrow before the Political Parties Appeals Tribunal. I want the rule of law to be observed. In the Jubilee constitution, the National Management Committee cannot purport to have removed a member of the National Executive Council because the NMC is inferior to the NEC.  

Do you fear that Jubilee might kick out rebel MPs for allegiance to UDA?

Jubilee cannot expel us because the only active organ is the disciplinary committee, which is given instructions to expel so and so after the verdict is reached somewhere else. Those who do not agree with the Jubilee Party are more than those remaining. If we were to exit Jubilee, we would cause mini polls because we have over 100 MPs elected on Jubilee ticket. They can expel me from the party but not influence my election in Soy and I have an option of resigning from the party and seeking a fresh mandate on another political outfit. It is an option that is open and that I feel I can make a decision on sooner or later.

It is evident that you are unhappy with the Jubilee Party, why can’t the entire Tangatanga brigade quit and seek a fresh mandate?

Resignation is an act of cowardice. Fight from within, expose them, let them play into your tricks. If we resigned, how would Kenyans know that we have evils, dishonesty, tyrants, selfish, thankless people in Jubilee? When Raphael Tuju and David Murathe speak, you know who has sent them.
 
Why exactly is your camp opposed to the BBI, yet it creates positions that can help DP Ruto to craft a winning coalition ahead of 2022?

We have not opposed the BBI, what we are saying is that we need consensus — a process that has everybody on board. it is not only us; even the Council of Imams came to request the same, among others.

Again, the timing of BBI is wrong: the cost implications are enormous. We know now that our debt portfolio is Sh1 trillion a year, we have coronavirus ravaging the world, why champion constitutional amendments in the middle of a global pandemic?

Our way forward on the BBI is to continue expressing our views as we have been doing because when you find your enemy digging a hole, do not help him dig it too deep because you might fall in it and that is why we are not going to lead a ‘No’ campaign against the BBI.

You had threatened to starve Jubilee financially by redirecting your monthly contributions to Kazi ni Kazi Welfare, was the decision recanted?

The deductions were starting this month, and I am not aware of any MP who has instructed the Clerk for double deduction. That was not a collective decision, it was an individual's decision.    
 
There have been calls to impeach DP Ruto, what if he is impeached?

They will not manage.  I have told them before that they need to bring this impeachment motion. I do not know why they keep on talking about it in the streets, at funerals and bars. Let them bring it to the floor of the House.