Handshake: Uhuru, Ruto to meet feuding party supporters

President Uhuru Kenyatta (right) chats with DP William Ruto at a past event in Embu County [File photo/Standard]

Jubilee party plans to hold its parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday, July 3 expected to be chaired by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

Tomorrow’s meeting comes a few days after the President and his deputy William Ruto met at State House, Nairobi, on Friday in the wake simmering differences and in-fighting in the Jubilee Party. Differences that threaten to sink the Jubilee ship after weeks of infighting that have their lieutenants tear into each other in public.

The meeting is likely to address internal party challenges, 2022 succession politics and the contentious lifestyle audit recently ordered by the president. This, as Jubilee MPs push the president to address implications of the May 9 handshake with ODM’s Raila Odinga on the ruling party.

“When we started in 2013, the President and his deputy agreed to work together and end hostility among communities in the country. But since the handshake, things seem to be falling apart,” says Nakuru Town East MP David Gikaria

There has been fears that the ruling party was on the verge of collapsing under the weight of internal conflict. The main source of conflict appears to be the resistance of the lifestyle audit and a perception among DP Ruto’s foot soldiers that a clique of bureaucrats around President Uhuru was working to block his State House bid in 2022.

But things are complicated by the fact a sizable number of elected Central Kenya leaders, among them Moses Kuria, actually the president’s MP, have thrown their weight behind Mr Ruto.

Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi was the first to defend the deputy president after the President’s call for lifestyle audit. Mr. Sudi is on record as saying that lifestyle audit should then begin with the founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, therefore taking the war to President Uhuru who is Kenyatta’s son.

Aldai MP Cornelly Serem, in a parliamentary committee session, sought to implicate Mr. Muhoho Kenyatta, the President’s younger brother in an illegal sugar importation saga in what appears like a planned counterstrike. He alleged that Mr. Muhoho was associated with a company called Protech listed among close to 300 firm that were licensed to import duty-free sugar last year. Protech has since denied importing sugar using the duty waiver window.

Some Jubilee MPs are now suggesting that President Uhuru’ lifestyle audit directive and 2022 succession politics be dealt with at the Parliamentary Group meeting, arguing that if the divisive issues are not addressed urgently, the damage to the ruling coalition could escalate.

Nakuru Town West MP Samuel Arama said: “The meeting would be timely because even a fool knows there is a crisis that is threatening to tear apart Jubilee. We need to understand some few things about the handshake and why things have suddenly changed in Jubilee.

Above all, the unity deal between the President and Opposition leader Raila Odinga, and its place in Jubilee affairs seem to be at the centre of the grievances of MPs allied to the deputy president.