Raila, Mudavadi campaigns gear up

Presidential hopefuls Raila Odinga and Musalia Mudavadi have unveiled new strategies to win supporters across the country, with each assuring that their party primaries will be free and fair.

At separate functions, Mr Odinga and Mr Mudavadi said there will be no direct nominations and that all those seeking party tickets will have to battle it out in a free and fair primaries.

At a meeting with ODM aspirants at the Bomas of Kenya, Mr Odinga also unveiled a team to lead the party’s campaigns in various regions.

Mr Mudavadi, speaking when he launched his presidential campaign secretariat in Nairobi’s Kileleshwa suburb, also set minimum conditions to be met by United Democratic Forum aspirants.

He welcomed Webuye MP Alfred Sambu to UDF. Mr Sambu is one of the MPs from Western Province who had stuck with ODM.

At Mr Odinga’s function, Youth Affairs Minister Ababu Namwamba said the grassroots campaign dubbed “ODM Mashinani” will mount door-to-door operations in all the 47 counties to popularise the party and recruit new members.

The campaign will be launched on Thursday in Nairobi before being rolled out simultaneously in other parts of the country a week later.

The ODM campaigns in Central Kenya, considered a stronghold of The National Alliance, will be led by Mr Mike Rubia, while Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo will be in charge of Nyanza.

In the expansive Rift Valley, the campaigns will be led by Cabinet ministers Margaret Kamar (North Rift), Musa Sirma (Central Rift) and Franklin Bett (South Rift). The Maa region will be coordinated by Defence assistant minister Joseph Nkaiserry.

North Eastern campaigns will be led by Deputy Speaker Farah Maalim, Western by Internal Security assistant minister Alfred Khang’ati, Eastern by Cooperatives Minister Joe Nyaga, while the Nairobi region will be led by Regional Development Minister Fred Gumo.

Campaigns in Coast region will be spearheaded by MPs Dhadho Godana (Tana River), Omar Zonga (Kwale), Ramadhan Kajembe (Mombasa) and Gideon Mung’aro (Kilifi).

Mr Mudavadi said those seeking to be elected to the county assemblies must be endorsed by a minimum of 500 registered UDF members while parliamentary aspirants must be endorsed by at least 1,000 members.

Aspirants for the gubernatorial, senatorial and women’s representative positions must be endorsed by at least 2,000 members.

“It means you must go out there and recruit members to the party. These are requirements set out in the Constitution, there are no short-cuts so even if you walk out of UDF and go to another party, you will get the same rules,” Mr Mudavadi stated.

Mr Odinga and the ODM elections board chairman Henry Kathurima assured the aspirants that the primaries would be free and fair. (READ: Elections: Raila sees a clean win for ODM)

The PM said that although ODM was open to coalitions, he believed the party had a real chance of forming the next government. “We are in this contest to win,” the PM said.

“We need to form a government in which we can implement radical programmes at a faster pace than the coalition would allow. We want to implement ODM policies, not an amalgamation of programmes that include policies we would never touch,” he added.