‘Betrayal’ stalks election of new Eala members

By Isaac Ongiri

Political intrigues, ethnic interests and backstabbing played out in the just concluded nomination of new MPs to the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala).

A deal at a night meeting between 40 MPs allied to Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Eldoret North MP William Ruto sealed the fate of two South and North Rift candidates.

Former councillor Ronald Ngeny of ODM, a Kipsigis, and Jenifer Masis of Wiper Democratic Movement, a Sabaot, found themselves out, locking the Kalenjin nation from the regional assembly bringing together five countries.

Eala member states are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi while an application by South Sudan is under review.

Inside sources revealed the meeting at the International Bible Society in Lavington, Nairobi, held on Wednesday night was about five candidates, Ngeny, Masis, former Nyakach MP Peter Odoyo and former Assistant minister Joseph Kiangoi and ODM official Nancy Abisai.

And at the end, Mudavadi and Ruto struck a deal to have the MPs on their side vote for Abisai, who despite being a critic of the Sabatia MP at home was the only Luhya in the ODM side, with realistic chances of making it through.

In order to support Abisai, who hails from Vihiga, Ruto’s group demanded support for Masis from their UDF colleagues.

Belgut MP Charles Keter, however, insisted Ruto’s group lobbied for Masis and Ngeny and instead accused ODM of having done very little to campaign for the former councillor.

URP stand

“We had no issue with Ngeny. In fact, we voted for him and that is why he managed 67 votes. He failed because ODM did not campaign for him,” Keter said.

The Standard On Sunday spotted Ngeny at Parliament lobby pleading with some URP allied MPs from the Rift Valley to vote for him just moments before the exercise kicked off.

Keter said though the Kalenjin community lost out, Ruto was not to blame. He said the region is okay with the representation from Saoli ole Nkanae and Judy Pareno, who are from Rift Valley.

But Roads Minister Franklin Bett accused Ruto’s group of playing cheap and jealous politics and called on the community to take stock of the political activities by the URP group and make a judgement. “They came and told us they had agreed with Mudavadi that we support Masis but the DPM’s group did not vote for her. Their plot against Ngeny was a betrayal and people should be careful with this kind of politics,” Bett said.

The Bureti MP said all the ODM MPs from the Kalenjin community had agreed to vote for Ngeny but he was shocked when he lost and added that he suspected URP MPs snubbed him as plotted.

And Bett said the region lost another influential appointment when William Kirwa was nominated the Controller of Budget by President Kibaki last year.

“It is Ruto who led a political rebellion against that appointment and we lost as a community,” Bett claimed. Kirwa is a perennial political foe of the Eldoret North legislator.

Burnt out

Even as the North and South Rift regions burnt themselves out of the race, Central Kenya combined forces with ODM to vote in Mumbi Ngaru without considering her political identity.

The move was only comparable to the manner in which the region voted to defeat a no confidence Motion brought against former Vice-President George Saitoti during the Ninth Parliament by Mbita MP Otieno Kajwang’.

Saitoti’s ethnic identity was a matter of national speculation during the Kanu regime and the then DP under Kibaki’s dalliance with the former VP gave hint.

On the voting day, all DP MPs combined with other legislators from Central Province and those from Kanu to defeat the Motion.

In the Thursday’s vote, MPs from Luo Nyanza also abandoned former Nyakach MP Peter Odoyo for Mr Kiangoi after the party whipped them to back the former Assistant minister as the Nyanza candidate to avoid splitting the vote.

Investigation by The Standard On Sunday revealed a few MPs who served with the former Assistant Minister, most of them from outside Nyanza, lent their sympathy and voted for him.

“Yes, there are people like Asman Kamama who decided to vote for Odoyo because they were with him in the previous Parliament and thought he was a good candidate. This was not about tribalism,” Keter said.

But an MP from Nyanza claimed Odoyo was used as a bait to enhance chances of the other candidates ODM was interested in. “ODM would like to make it very clear that it is happy with its nominees elected into the Eala by Parliament,” said party Secretary General Anyang’ Nyong’o.

Nyongo said all the nine candidates presented by ODM were strong enough for the competition.

“However, it is unfortunate some members from the Rift Valley, now grouped under the so called URP, conspired to vote against Ng’eny on purely parochial grounds,” Nyong’o said.

ODM officials Jakoyo Midiwo and Ababu Namwamba are said to have led a team of party think tanks into several strategy meetings to get the party candidates to victory and to have a strategy coined by the advisors implemented as sketched.

Mr Abisai was enlisted to test Mr Mudavadi. The rejection of the only Luhya candidate nominated by the party would have cast Mudavadi in bad light in his Western backyard. It is the same card that the party played on Ruto by nominating Ngeny.

In Central, the region stuck to its principles of uniting for its interest irrespective of political opinions when they voted Ngaru despite her religious support for Raila.

Other candidates who sailed through were Abubakar Abdi Ogle (Narc-K), Abubakar Zein Abubakar (ODM), Judith Pareno (ODM) and Sarah Bonaya (Kanu).

Apart from Ms Bonaya, all the other MPs currently serving at the assembly will now have to retire after the swearing in of the new team including nine each from the other member states.