Waki: Row over Ruto threat to quit ODM

A group of ODM MPs have asked Agriculture minister William Ruto to stop criticising Prime Minister Raila Odinga after Mr Ruto said he would lead the party’s supporters in Rift Valley to decamp from the party.

On Saturday Mr Ruto said he would lead ODM supporters from Rift Valley in ditching the party if their interests were not safeguarded.

And for the first time since the December 2007 elections, he publicly criticised Mr Odinga for failing to defend the interests of the Kalenjin community.

It is understood that Rift Valley MPs are considering the option of joining the United Democratic Movement (UDM), a party that fielded candidates in the Ainamoi, Bomet and Sotik by-elections but lost to ODM.

After the Sotik by-elections last September, Mr Ruto said that although he was a founder member of UDM, he was no longer active.

And at the weekend, he said Rift Valley residents were concerned with the manner in which the PM was handling the Waki report and the planned eviction of families from the Mau Forest water catchment.

“No one invited us to join ODM and when we feel deemed to leave we shall do so by our choice without having to seek any one’s permission,” he said in Olenguruone at the weekend.

And Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey appeared to join the fray when he dismissed leaders calling for the implementation of the Waki report.

He described the report as “shoddy” and argued that the putting people’s names in an envelope amounted to tarnishing their reputations before they were given an opportunity to defend themselves.

The names in the envelope are yet to be made public. Mr Justice Philip Waki, who investigated the post-election violence, handed the list to former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. The names in the envelope will be handed over to the International Criminal Court if Kenya fails to set up a tribunal to try those linked to the violence.

According to Mr Kosgey, the violence started because “Kenyans were angered by the delay in announcing the (election) results”.

But assistant minister Orwa Ojode, MPs Jakoyo Midiwo, Musa Sirma and former MP Owino Likowa yesterday disagreed with Mr Ruto and Mr Kosgey.

They told Mr Ruto to stop issuing threats and instead use the party’s channels to resolve the problems facing his community.

“Ruto is a good friend and a very brilliant politician who knows that negotiations are best done in the boardroom. This matter of issuing threats at a public rally is not good for the party,” said Mr Ojode.

Mr Midiwo, the Government Chief Whip, asked MPs to stop criticising the PM and use the available means to solve the challenges facing their people.

“Rift Valley MPs think that the report is being used to victimise their own leaders and we have been seeing this going on for a long time.... What we are asking them is to stop blaming the Prime Minister for everything,” he said.

Mr Sirma also disagreed with Mr Ruto on the threat to quit ODM. He said the Kalenjin community had a stake in the party and was not ready to quit before the next elections. He also said it was inappropriate to criticise Mr Odinga.

“I am surprised with his (Mr Ruto’s) position,” he said. “This community is not there for auction to the highest bidder. We must make our position known that we are in ODM to stay.”

Mr Likowa said Mr Ruto’s threats were misplaced.

“As a senior member of the Orange party, the minister should be part of the solutions and not problems,” he said.

MPs from the Rift Valley have been complaining that they were short-changed in the distribution of Cabinet slots and appointments to key public positions in the civil service and parastatals since the Grand Coalition was formed in April.

Matters were complicated by Mr Odinga’s position that the Waki report on post-election violence be implemented in full. He also said that families settled in Mau Forest be evicted to protect Kenya’s largest water tower.

Deputy PM Musalia Mudavadi has also called for the full implementation of the Waki report.

Medical Services minister Anyang Nyong’o, who attended the In Olenguruone meeting, had earlier tried to downplay the rift between Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga by assuring the community that the Mau issue should not be perceived as a source of conflict. 

“Your people have always been supporting each other with our community through intermarriage and this was cemented last year by the decision to support ODM which your attested by the manner in which you voted for party leaders from councilors, MPs and for Raila Odinga,” Prof Nyong’o said.

But Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba, the ODM parliamentary group secretary, differed with Prof Nyong’o arguing that emerging party differences were sparked by the decision by the National Executive Council to reverse an earlier resolutions by MPs to reject the Waki report trashed.

“The NEC must learn to respect the views of MPs because their decision was based on the interests of the electorate. As such by ignoring them is like shutting wananchi out yet we are supposed to represent them,” he said.

Relatives bitter

Cherangany MP Joshua Kutuny, a critic of Mr Odinga, claimed that 2,500 youths were languishing in jail following the chaos and that their relatives were bitter.

“This is why any attempt to prosecute leaders on the Waki secret list will spark fresh chaos,” he warned.

Mr Kutuny said the list of suspects in the Waki envelope should be handed back to Kenya and the President required to make the names public before setting up a special tribunal to try those implicated.

Konoin MP Julius Kones argued that the findings of the Waki report were a deliberate attempt to lock out certain politicians from the 2012 elections. He said the ODM parliamentary group would not rescind its decision to reject it.

Mr Ruto is on record as having rejected the report. Speaking in a mixture of English, Kiswahili and Kalenjin during the Olenguroeni meeting, Mr Ruto hit out at Mr Odinga for the stand he had taken on the report and the Mau Forest evictions.

In an apparent reference to Mr Odinga, Mr Ruto declared that everybody knew why the country was rocked by post-election violence. He urged leaders to face the real issues that would end recurrence of such violence.

“Why are we pretending that we don’t know why the country went to war? The cause of what happened in the country early this year was obvious,” Mr Ruto said.

According to him, it was surprising that Mr Odinga had turned around to tell the youths who engaged in what he called “mass action” to defend him after the elections that they should they should “carry their own cross.”

Mass action is usually peaceful but the post-election protests at the disputed presidential elections were characterised by violence in which 1,133 people were killed and over 300,000 displaced from their homes.

Asking for votes

“When arap Mibei (Mr Odinga’s nickname) went around asking for our votes, we turned out in large numbers to vote for him because he promised to take care of our interests. But now, when a person says everybody should carry his own cross, we are left wondering. Whose cross were we really fighting for?” he asked.

“I want to ask today: Which cross did we have before the elections were it not for the troubles that we shouldered trying to defend our candidate whom we believed had been rigged out?”

The minister said the Waki report was flawed and does not qualify to form the basis of an international trial “since it was based on hearsay”.

He said it should be rejected “in toto” because the cause of the violence was the errors made by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK).

Mr Ruto also told Mr Odinga to respect the views of the ODM Parliamentary Group which had rejected the Waki report. He also asked the PM to consult other leaders in the running of party affairs.

Reported by Simon Siele, Noah Cheploen and Bernard Namunane