Raila begins ambitious plan to save ODM party

By Biketi Kikechi

Stung by a series of defeats in recent by-elections and waning popularity in strongholds like the Rift Valley, ODM - arguably Kenya’s most popular political party - has gone back to the drawing board.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga will, this week, begin a series of meetings with MPs from different regions to seek ways of holding the party together and make it a formidable force in the 2012 General Election.

Apart from a planned re-organisation of the party secretariat, the party leader has also lined up a series of consultative meetings with ODM MPs from all regions in the country.

Raila is expected to start with ODM MPs from the Coast Province next week to address the region’s development agenda and also lay out the party’s strategies for the 2012 presidential elections focus.

The meeting, that was to have been held last Thursday, will be followed by a series of meetings with MPs from other regions.

The meeting was pushed forward but it later emerged that Raila had met six Rift Valley MPs led by Heritage Minister William Ole Ntimama to lay out party strategies in the expansive province.

An ODM MP told The Standard On Sunday that a group of MPs from Rift Valley who fell out with the Prime Minister have not ruled out returning to the fold if leadership at the secretariat is changed.

“It is true that there is a big problem at the secretariat that has forced many party members to look elsewhere but that is going to be sorted out,” said the MP.

The MP lamented that apart from lack of consultation and poor judgment during the by-elections, the secretariat had also been poor at resource mobilisation and accountability.

Bridging differences

The chairman of the Coast Parliamentary Group Benedict Fondo Gunda acknowledged that the meetings would be held in due course.

The interactive meetings will focus on issues the MPs expect the party to help them resolve and how the party can retain its invincible character in their regions.

It is also expected that the differences between Mvita MP Najib Balala and his Kisauni counterpart Hassan Joho will be addressed and resolved at the meeting.

On Saturday, Mandera Central MP Aden Dualle, who is also a senior party official, said there is no democracy in ODM because of lack of consultation in decision-making.

“Consultation is dead, and it is hypocritical for ODM to demand to be consulted in government when impunity is reigning in the party.

“The only way forward is for ODM to allow internal democracy to flourish in the party,” said Dualle.

There is growing concern that the party is no longer the invincible outfit whose might was felt across the country before the 2007 elections.

Few could have noticed that ODM participated in the Juja by-election because its candidate, Mr Dick Githaiga, managed a paltry 399 votes.

That was the lowest an ODM candidate has managed since the party was registered.

Candidates of three main rival parties harvested over 17,000 votes each with the winner, Mr William Kabogo (Narc-Kenya), getting over 45,000 votes.

The party is now expected to call a National Governing Council meeting early next year to revitalise leadership at branch and national level.

‘Mere rumours’

Despite calls for a change of guard at the secretariat, two officials — Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o and Ms Janet Ong’era — have dismissed the impending shake-up as mere rumours. Nyong’o has maintained that all is well and there is no cause for alarm.

Last week, Ong’era also told off her critics and insisted that she would be in office until 2012.

Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba has been mentioned as a likely successor of the Medical Services minister, and the catch is that he is likely to help bring together party rank and file as he has in the past worked with some of the most vocal party rebels.

Some MPs seeking an overhaul of the ODM secretariat have demanded to know how it handed the party’s Juja ticket to Githaiga, who has in the past been associated with the Democratic Party.

For them, they point at the fact that the eventual winner, Kabogo, had sought the ODM ticket.

They claim that the same mistake was made in South Mugirango where Manson Nyamweya had sought an ODM ticket that was instead handed to the late Ibrahim Ochoi.

Another case of poor judgment was cited in Makadara, where Gedion Mbuvi Kioko had also unsuccessfully sought the ODM ticket.

Nyong’o argued Reuben Ndolo deserved it because he had used his personal resources to file the petition.

But MPs have suggested that the party should have refunded Ndolo his expenses and held an election to pick a candidate.