New party positions fail to unite ODM rivals

ODM will give candidates its list of delegates for the February 28 national election on Tuesday.

The announcement came as Coast leaders yesterday snubbed a meeting meant to prepare for the party elections, signalling divisions within the party.

Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba, who is vying for the powerful secretary-general seat, got a boost from Mombasa governor Ali Hassan Joho, who threw his weight behind his candidacy.

Mr Joho is vying for the Deputy Party Leader’s position and has previously campaigned with Mr Namwamba’s rival for the secretary-general’s post, Dr Agnes Zani.

The presentation of the delegates list to the candidates on Tuesday is one of the resolutions made during the party’s National Governing Council on Thursday.

All the branches are to pick up lists from ODM headquarters for sharing across the country. The candidates have been pushing for the release of the delegates list in advance for verification and to prevent rigging.

VOTE BY COUNTY

The governing council chaired by Party Leader Raila Odinga agreed that the delegates, who will meet at the Safaricom Kasarani Stadium gymnasium for the election, will sit and vote by county.

Mr Odinga defended the creation of new national office positions that has been opposed by Mr Namwamba, saying, it was meant to serve the party well but not to cushion some people from the rigours of campaigns.

Yesterday, the party officials led by executive director Magerer Langat met with County Assembly Speakers and majority leaders in Naivasha to find ways of strengthening the party and pushing its agenda at the grassroots ahead of the 2017 elections.

On Friday, Mr Joho briefly showed up at a venue where a meeting to prepare for the elections was to be held, but quickly left. Wundanyi MP Thomas Mwadeghu, who stayed behind, told journalists that Dr Zani would not form part of the campaign team.

Mr Joho, who later addressed Bungoma leaders in his office, threw his weight behind Mr Namwamba for secretary-general and Turkana governor Josphat Nanok for the chairmanship.

“Some of us had even printed campaign materials for Hassan Joho deputy party leader. I will not surrender and will go all the way to the finishing line,” he told Bungoma leaders and delegates led by the governor Kenneth Lusaka in his office in Mombasa on Friday.

At Flamingo Beach Resort and Spa in Mombasa North where the Coast ODM meeting was due to take place, Mr Mwadeghu told journalists: “We have met honourable Zani and agreed that she will campaign alone throughout the country while we have decided to do it as a group.”

He said the group would instead work with Mr Namwamba.

BEEN ELECTED

But Dr Zani immediately denounced the move, saying on the telephone: “As far as I know, there is a committee that has been selected and mandated to go round the country.

“It is simply carrying out its mandate. I do not think this Mombasa group is campaigning. But even if they are campaigning, everyone has their own individual way of doing things.”

Mr Mwadeghu, who is the chairman of the Constitutional committee of the Coast leaders, said their team would begin campaigning across the country this weekend.

He said that the leaders, who, he claimed, had all been invited, had been caught up in other engagements and would be available for a meeting tonight.

“We could not meet because as you can see, leaders are not here. They are engaged elsewhere and some of them are still in Nairobi,” he said.
Mr Mwadeghu said the campaign strategic team would comprise Mr Joho, Mr Namwamba, Mr Josphat Nanok (Turkana Governor), Mr Simon Ogari (South Mugirango MP) and Mrs Roza Buyu, a Kisumu politician.

Asked if excluding Dr Zani from the team while including her opponent would split the party at the Coast, the MP said: “She has her right to campaign as an individual.”

He said party members would not agree to have leaders imposed upon them, saying, if there was a pre-determined list, “then there would be no need for people to campaign.”

The team will tour Isiolo in Garissa on Sunday, Thika, Machakos and Ong’ata Rongai on Monday, Kisumu, Kakamega and Eldoret on Tuesday, ending with Kericho and Mombasa Wednesday and Thursday.