Jubilee fights to stem discontent over lack of party officials

National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale

Jubilee Party is struggling to stem growing anxiety generated by the lack of interim officials.

Factions are emerging within the party, threatening to split President Uhuru Kenyatta’s and Deputy President William Ruto’s re-election vehicle a month after it was launched.

Leaders from nine out of the 12 political parties that dissolved to form the new outfit have accused Uhuru’s defunct The National Alliance (TNA) and Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) of isolating affiliate parties in the running of the new party.

Named T9, the group comprises Bungoma Governor Ken Lusaka (New Ford Kenya), Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua (GNU), former Kibwezi MP Kalembe Ndile (Tip Tip), John Kamama, Albert Nyaundi (Ford People), Ben Washiali and Hassan Osman (UDF) among others.

But National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale yesterday downplayed the ongoing power struggle and termed leaders claiming to represent their defunct parties “lost”.

“We have one party called Jubilee Party, therefore whoever is purporting to represent the dissolved parties is lost,” he said.

OUTFIT OFFICIALS

Mr Duale said Uhuru and Ruto would, in the course of this week, begin meetings to pick interim officials to steer the party to the 2017 polls.

He said the new outfit would have its officials by the end of next week, explaining that the delay in identifying them had been occasioned by foreign trips by the party’s top two leaders.

Early this month, Duale announced that the party would have its officials in 10 days, a period that lapsed last week.

On Tuesday, the discontented group once again cancelled a press briefing at which they were to present a list of demands to Uhuru and Ruto, with claims that they had been sidelined in the affairs of the party.

Mr Ndile told The Standard that the meeting was cancelled because some of the leaders involved were engaged elsewhere.

He said the group had agreed to retreat to Machakos next week to discuss the way forward.

He claimed that the nine parties constituted 70 per cent of delegates who formed Jubilee on September 10.

“We want to tell the two leaders that they should consult extensively before picking national officials,” he said.

On Tuesday night, some of the leaders met in a Nairobi hotel to deliberate over some of the demands they want met by the party.

An official who attended the night meeting but did not wish to be named said they had been kept in the dark since the party was launched.

The group has also queried Uhuru and Ruto’s intention to block politicians from holding party positions.