TNA-UDF members set to pick Jubilee candidate in fiery contest

By MWANIKI MUNUHE

Jubilee Coalition presidential nomination contest between Deputy Prime Ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi will be decided by members of their respective parties.

Members of Eldoret North legislator William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) will not take part in the presidential nominations scheduled for Tuesday, according to draft nomination rules for the alliance developed by representatives of the three parties.

“Presidential Electoral College” means a convention of 5,054 delegates from The National Alliance (TNA) and UDF,” states the document authored by the technical team comprising Dan Ameyo (UDF), Jasper Mbiuki (TNA), and Kipchumba Murkomen (URP).

The team agreed UDF and TNA will share equally 11 per cent of the delegates while the balance of 89 per cent will be allocated proportionately according to the strength of registered members. UDF and TNA will have six party members from each of the 47 counties, which will constitute 11 per cent of the delegates.

In addition, “a pro?rated number of delegates based on the Register as at December 4, 2012 from each of the Coalition Partners will constitute 89 per cent of the delegates”.

URP was left out of the arrangement because it was argued the party had secured the running mate’s position — Ruto will run as deputy president — irrespective of the outcome of the presidential nominations.

Uhuru’s allies were apprehensive that Ruto may rally his delegates to support Mudavadi, whose close allies had openly indicated they would seek Ruto’s backing.

A legislator who is a key member of Uhuru’s TNA said: “This is a contest between UDF and TNA. URP has taken its position already. The voting therefore should be done by representation from parties that are contesting and URP is not one of them.”

Earlier, The Standard had established the technical team had been toying with four options to unlock the deadlock over the formula for undertaking the nominations.

It had proposed a system of 3,000 delegates representative of the membership of individual parties as at December 4.

The second option proposed by the panel included a contest between UDF and TNA alone where both parties would share 20 per cent of the 3,000 delegates equally (six delegates per party in each county), while the remaining 2,436 delegates be allocated between TNA and UDF based on each party’s membership strength as at December 4.

Also proposed by the panel was to have all the three parties bring an equal number of delegates or have TNA and UDF fight it out again based on an equal number of delegates.

The nomination panel includes former Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission boss Aaron Ringera representing TNA, Jasper Mbiuki (TNA), MPs Ndiritu Muriithi and Abdikadir Mohammed both from UDF and Kipchumba Murkomen and David Chirchir (URP).

PRIVATE ARRANGEMENT

Last week, The Standard established that a team of about six TNA MPs spent several hours at Uhuru’s home discussing the matter. Those who attended the meeting include Juja MP William Kabogo, Wilfred Ombui, Cabinet Minister Naomi Shaban and Nominated MP Amina Abdalla.

However, The Standard independently established that the meeting was a private arrangement between the DPM and the said MPs.

Ruto is also said to be uncomfortable with the team of legislators who met Uhuru last Friday on grounds that the group was the force behind TNA’s hardline position of getting URP out of the nominations for Jubilee Coalition presidential candidate.

When The Standard engaged several MPs who refused to be named because the discussions are still at a delicate stage, it emerged that URP prefers Mudavadi ostensibly because he is ‘easy to manage’ compared to Uhuru.

The lawmakers believe he can defeat Orange Democratic Movement presidential candidate Raila Odinga more easily than Uhuru. On the other hand, TNA believes Mudavadi is a hard sell and had not worked hard enough to deserve the position.