New party ready as Jubilee leaders pursue one political front for 2017

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, have embarked on a plan to merge their parties before the 2017 elections.

The National Alliance and the United Republican Party will be collapsed into a single entity to be known as Jubilee Alliance Party, which has already been registered.

To avoid legal hurdles in registering a new party, those implementing the merger plan went for the easier option of changing the name of an existing Jubilee Coalition affiliate — the Conservative Party.

TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja on Friday said the new party would present a candidate in the Kajiado Central by-election to be supported by the Jubilee Coalition members.

“There is a new party named the Jubilee Alliance Party. Both the TNA and the URP will merge into the new party before 2017,” Mr Sakaja told the Saturday Nation.

URP Secretary-General Fred Muteti confirmed that his party was party to the coalition’s planned rebranding.

“Yes, we are part of the new plan to set up a party called Jubilee Alliance Party,” Mr Muteti said. He urged Jubilee legislators and county assembly members to support it.

“We want to appeal to the Jubilee MPs, senators and MCAs not to fear change.

“This new idea has the support of top Jubilee alliance officials and it is the only way to avoid political zoning of our strongholds,” he told the Nation yesterday.

President Kenyatta’s and Mr Ruto’s allies have taken strategic interim positions in the new entity, confirming their involvement.

Mr David Murathe, a long-time personal assistant to Mr Kenyatta, is the vice-chairman. Mr Nixon Korir, a confidant of Mr Ruto’s and one of URP’s founder members, has been appointed executive director.

The other interim officials are Ms Veronica Maina (secretary-general), Mr Nelson Dzuia (chairman) and Mr Abraham Mutai (treasurer).

Mr Sakaja said the TNA and URP had agreed to conduct a joint nomination to get a single candidate under the new party in the Kajiado Central by-election.

TNA has five aspirants while the URP has attracted two. All will fight for the Jubilee Alliance Party ticket. “We want to use this opportunity to test the waters,” Mr Sakaja said.

The joint nomination will be conducted on January 24. Mr Sakaja said it would be conducted through universal suffrage and the voters would pick the candidate by secret ballot.

“We do not want to behave like the ODM,” he said. “We will allow the people of Kajiado Central to nominate a candidate of their choice by voting secretly for their preferred choice.”

The polling centres would be merged to minimise the cost and that the new party’s secretariat was mapping the constituency for the nomination.

Government insiders said the plan to merge Jubilee parties ahead of the 2017 elections was meant to help Mr Ruto to position himself strategically for President Kenyatta’s succession in 2022.

“The whole idea is to psyche the Kikuyu nation to begin to prepare to support Mr Ruto when President Kenyatta retires and it will work better when the two parties are dissolved,” said a source in government.

The President and his deputy have convened a retreat for Jubilee Coalition legislators from both the Senate and the National Assembly, in Naivasha next weekend.

The retreat is expected to discuss the merger. However, some MPs and senators are said to be opposed to the idea, fearing that some 2013 election losers might position themselves in the new party.