ODM signals readiness for broad-based government amid Azimio tensions
The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which former Prime Minister Raila Odinga leads, on Wednesday, gave the clearest indication yet that it was ready to go it alone in the formation of a ‘broad-based government’ as proposed by President William Ruto.
Wiper Democratic Movement party leader Kalonzo Musyoka, a principal member of the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party to which ODM also belongs was ejected from Mr Odinga’s Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation offices, the venue of the coalition’s Parliamentary Group (PG) meeting, as he read the resolutions that vehemently opposed joining the government.
Mr Musyoka’s briefing ended in disarray after rowdy youths disrupted it as soon as he had started reading the resolutions. Mr Odinga had by then excused himself to attend to other engagements. When he got to the podium, Mr Musyoka conveyed Mr Odinga’s apologies, saying, the former Prime Minister had left for an “important meeting.”
Curiously, other senior ODM leaders, including Mr Odinga’s twin deputies in the persons of former governors Hassan Joho (Mombasa) and Wycliffe Oparanya (Kakamega), alongside Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna and Director of Elections Junet Mohamed, did not accompany Mr Musyoka to the presser. The Wiper boss was flanked by Party of National Unity leader Peter Munya, former Cabinet Secretary Raphael Tuju, and Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua, among other leaders.
Dozens of youths
No sooner had the Wiper leader started reading the statement on the PG resolutions than dozens of youths who had been milling around the venue stormed the tents and ejected him together with the other leaders.
The statement that he had started reading declared with finality that the coalition “will not be part of the proposed broad-based or any other government with the Kenya Kwanza coalition.”
President Ruto has been vouching for a “broad-based government,” akin to a Government of National Unity that some ODM party members have recently been warming up to.
Earlier, ODM had held its joint National Executive Committee (NEC) and PG meeting at the same venue and endorsed national dialogue to get the country out of the current political crisis, but steered clear of talk about joining the government.
"The meeting endorsed the call by the Central Committee of the Party during its meeting of Friday 12th July 2024 for a national convention/conversation that would bring together all the people of Kenya," read a statement by Mr Sifuna.
The meeting reiterated the need for the proposed convention to be all-inclusive, people-centred and constitutionalised. It further endorsed the position taken by the Central Management Committee for certain pre-conditions to be met before the national convention to create a conducive environment for the dialogue.
The conditions include compensation of all victims of police brutality during protests beginning last year, apprehension of the rogue officers implicated in these incidents, a national amnesty for all those arrested or abducted, and the interdiction of Nairobi regional police boss Adamson Bungei, among others.
In the Azimio statement that the Nation has seen and that Mr Musyoka had started reading, the meeting “considered the need for a people-driven national constitutional convention as a possible pathway towards the resolution of the national crisis subject to the consensus and concurrence of other stakeholders.”
The coalition demanded the apprehension of the rogue officers responsible for the shootings, maiming and killing of peaceful demonstrators.
Immediate interdiction
It demanded the immediate interdiction of the top police officers who presided over the atrocities and that all the abducted Kenyans be unconditionally released and abductions to stop forthwith.
The coalition also demanded compensation from the government for all those who were killed by rogue officers in the protests last year as well as in the ongoing protests.
“We demand that the government pays all the hospital bills for victims of the police shootings,” read the unsigned statement.
The Nation yesterday established that Mr Odinga’s ODM troops were keen on working with President Ruto amid claims that their Azimio counterparts, who have the backing of former president Uhuru Kenyatta, were warming up to deputy president Rigathi Gachagua for a possible pre-election deal in 2027, thereby isolating the former premier.
At the ODM PG yesterday, the party’s National Chairman John Mbadi sensationally accused their Azimio partners of dishonesty.
“This country must talk. Our partners in Azimio are dishonest. We have children and we have a country to save for them,” Mr Mbadi told the parliamentary group meeting.
Other partners in the Azimio coalition, Mr Mbadi said while addressing Mr Odinga were “using you to bring down Ruto but you are not part of their power plans.”
Mr Odinga reportedly raised his reservations with the clamour to force President Ruto to resign, terming the consequences dire.
“Ruto goes, then what? Ruto may go then Gachagua takes over [to continue] implementing bad policies. Ruto can also say ‘I am tired, let the [military] generals take over. Then the country begins to go through what Egypt went through after Tahrir Square. ‘Ruto must go’ cannot be an end,” Mr Odinga charged.
He noted that: “It’s at times of crisis like this that a country needs to talk. We are not doing it to save Ruto. We are doing it to save Kenya. Generals don’t have teargas. They don’t have water cannons. They have bullets.”
Mr Joho backed the proposal to engage with President Ruto.
“We must identify what works for us as ODM. We are the bigger party in Azimio and we cannot be bullied,” the former Mombasa governor said.
He accused Mr Musyoka of “trying to make [Mr Odinga] look like a traitor when he [Mr Musyoka] is hobnobbing with Gachagua.”
Preconditions
Mr Wandayi stressed the need for talks “with preconditions and with open minds.”
“Parties work together, not because they love each other, but to protect the interest of members,” he said as Mr Oparanya also endorsed the national conversation.
DAP-K party leader Eugene Wamalwa, another Azimio principal, did not attend the coalition’s PG and instead chaired his own party’s PG where he rejected calls for dialogue.
“We demand the termination of all cases related to this protest. Today, we are asking for this and also demanding compensation for all those who lost their lives and those who have suffered injuries, including the mental torture of those falsely imprisoned as abductees,” said Mr Wamalwa.
He went on: “I have no intention or inclination to join William Ruto's government. Even if he offered me my previous position, I would not accept it. The issue isn't the Cabinet itself; the problem is the leadership in the State House. William Ruto is the problem, not the dismissed Cabinet or the one he plans to form.”
Mr Munya, who attended the Azimio PG meeting, endorsed the proposed dialogue while Jubilee Secretary-General Jeremiah Kioni vowed to reject them.
Narc-Kenya leader Martha Karua has also opposed the talks, terming them a trap.
“Let’s be careful as the political class lest we hijack the genuine clamour for accountability and reforms by the Gen Z.”
Dialogue, she said, can only be meaningful if the players have good faith and are guided by the best interests of the people.
“I agree with those who say action now on the clear and attainable demands of the Gen Z to enhance accountability and make the State work for the masses rather than for a handful elite,” she charged.
Tension has been simmering in Azimio over claims that former President Kenyatta has been secretly backing Mr Musyoka for 2027 and has formed a line-up that has isolated Mr Odinga.
Mr Mbadi reportedly emphasised the matter at the ODM parliamentary group meeting.
Mr Kenyatta’s determination to stop a Raila-Ruto double team is said to be the reason the former prime minister has been seen to be blowing hot and cold in his emerging relationship with Dr Ruto.
The former president is said to be opposed to Mr Odinga taking up the chairmanship of the African Union Commission (AUC), which brings him close to Dr Ruto and has seen ODM go easy on Dr Ruto.
Impeccable sources familiar with the ongoings intimated to the Nation that Mr Kenyatta had even invited Mr Odinga to at least two meetings outside the country at which he has persuaded the former Prime Minister to abandon his quest for the AUC job and concentrate on Kenya.
According to sources, at both meetings, one in Europe and another in the Middle East, Mr Kenyatta told Mr Odinga that he was working on mobilising central Kenya to make him “President in 2027 or even earlier.”
“At a recent meeting at a foreign destination, Uhuru is said to have told Raila that Kenya needs him and Raila should not go for the AUC job and that the evolving situation would help Raila become President in 2027,” another source revealed.
