Uhuru's party plots Murkomen's removal as DP intervenes

Elgeyo Marakwet Senator addressing hundreds in Narok County. Jubilee leaders have blamed 2022 politics over Mau evictions. [Robert Kiplagat/Standard]

 

 

Ruto is said to have made frantic calls in efforts to save one of his fiercest defenders from being ousted as majority leader.

Cracks in President Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee Party continue to deepen with a planned ouster of Senate Leader of Majority Kipchumba Murkomen stopped at the last minute yesterday.

A Jubilee Party National Management Committee emergency meeting is said to have initially endorsed the Elgeyo Marakwet senator's removal from the powerful position. It reportedly took a last-minute intervention by Deputy President William Ruto to forestall his removal.

The meeting, at the party headquarters, began at 10am and ran until 3pm. A source said those in attendance pushed for Mr Murkomen's ouster and proposed his replacement a Bomet Senator Christopher Lang’at or his Uasin Gishu counterpart Margaret Kamar.

Ouster bid

The meeting was preceded by another one on Saturday night by State House operatives who had mooted the ouster bid. It is not clear if Murkomen's removal had the endorsement of President Uhuru Kenyatta, but a party meeting similar to yesterday's sitting requires a nod from top party officials.

A legislator who attended the night meeting said State House had been taken aback by Murkomen's statements that seemed to contradict official Government position.

"The feeling in circles of power is that from the Senate majority leader's statements, his spirit was no longer with the Government… from the opposition of the lifestyle audit ordered by the President to his outbursts over Mau evictions, he seems to have become an outsider," said the MP.

Ruto, who was officiating a fundraiser at the Karisa Maitha Stadium in Kilifi County in aid of translating the Bible from English to Giriama language, was said to have made frantic calls to save Murkomen after word reached him that there were plans to oust him.

Murkomen's woes deepened when he hit out at some people in Government for planning the Mau Forest evictions to hurt Ruto’s political image.

Government officials

While addressing those evicted from Mau in Kitoben, Narok County, on Saturday, Murkomen claimed some Government officials were working in cahoots with Opposition leader Raila Odinga to disparage the Deputy President's leadership by creating a 'Mau crisis' and blame it on Ruto in a bid to hurt his 2022 bid.

"The plan is to evict people from Mau and later they will use this to say those going for 2022 have not done the job of solving the crisis. It should be known that Government will not allow people to be used as a political herring,” he said.

Last month, while speaking at Sogoo High School in Narok South, where part of the forest is located, Ruto asked those living beyond the cut-line to move out, saying environmental conservation was crucial for the country. He said legal settlers would be issued with title deeds.

"We will not compromise on that. We must save the water tower as part of environmental conservation and we are clear about that. Those who went beyond the forest cut-line must get out," Ruto said.

This is not the first time Murkomen, once considered Uhuru's blue-eyed boy, is coming out to contradict his party boss and the Government position on an issue.

Appearing on a local TV station, the youthful and articulate senator tore into the President's lifestyle audit directive, claiming it did not have a legal framework and was likely to be abused.

Yesterday, Jubilee Party Secretary General Raphael Tuju refuted claims the emergency meeting had been convened to endorse Murkomen's removal from the Senate position.

He said it was not within the mandate of the committee to remove members from their parliamentary positions.

“Not possible. We don’t have locus on that matter. Only the Senate caucus can handle that. We cannot convene to discuss something that we don’t have locus on,” Mr Tuju said in response.

But he quickly added that there would be an analysis of the remarks (by Murkomen) by the party’s disciplinary committee, pointing to a possible push to punish the senator for opposing the Government from within.

Murkomen on Saturday hinted at a plot to vote him out of the position.

"Let me warn my detractors that I know they are looking for any way to clinch my Senate majority seat, but they will not go anywhere. What I am doing is helping these people who are being evicted inhumanely."

Tuju weighed in on the contentious Mau evictions and dismissed claims of human rights violation.

He insisted that the Government position was to have those who settled in the water towers evicted and vowed that the exercise would go on.

Tuju's remarks point to a silent political battle within the ruling party after Murkomen said he would continue to defend the settlers even if it meant severing links with the President.

Mau Forest has remained a hot potato that cost Opposition leader Raila Odinga votes in the Rift Valley region in 2013 after he spearheaded the first phase of the evictions in 2008.