Kivuti gives terms for handshake with Wambora

Former Embu Senator Lenny Kivuti addresses the press at his Kanyuambora home in Embu County. (Joseph Muchiri, Standard)

The political impasse that has prevailed in the county since last year’s governorship election might now be resolved as a former senator hinted he was ready for talks with the governor.

Lenny Kivuti said he would meet Wambora on condition that their resolutions were implemented after the Supreme Court rules on his petition challenging Governor Martin Wambora's election.

His other condition is that they each come to the dialogue accompanied by delegations of their key supporters.

Mr Kivuti, who spoke on Sunday after he met about 500 Embu leaders and supporters at Kanyuambora to deliberate on the issue, insisted that the governor had never invited him for a handshake.

Mr Wambora has on several occasions said he had reached out to his political rivals and all, except one, had embraced his gesture for a 'handshake'.

Kivuti also disputed claims that Deputy President William Ruto had brought him and Wambora to the negotiating table at a Nairobi hotel.

“There are rumours and press statements to the effect that there is a planned handshake between Wambora and I. I haven’t received any call from Wambora to invite me to that alleged meeting. If he invites me, I will not mind, but I will not sit with him alone.

I’ll insist that he brings along his leaders and I also bring my leaders so that we can talk,” he said.

Wambora last week said he would convene a meeting of all Embu leaders on September 29 to bring them on board in transforming the county for the remaining years of his tenure.

Kivuti explained his decision to move his petition to the Supreme Court after losing in the Court of Appeal, saying he was driven by an agenda to see the county develop and not just to clinch the county’s top seat.

He said the election petition should not be used as an excuse not to develop the county.

“No one should claim that the case has impeded development. The case hearing takes just a single day,” he said.