• Lawmaker says handshake portrays Raila as Uhuru's deputy, sometimes his equal.
• Says Jubilee is deeply divided over the handshake and could collapse.
A Jubilee legislator has attributed the sharp divisions in the ruling party to failure by President Uhuru Kenyatta to consult stakeholders on major decisions.
Manyatta MP John Muchiri said although most of the decisions the President has made are good, he has not been consulting other stakeholders, hence the confusion in the ruling party.
Muchiri said owing to lack of consultation among high ranking party administrators, JP is sharply divided into the Tanga Tanga and Kieleweke wings. He said the party might be divided further and collapse.
The MP pointed out one of the unilateral decisions President Kenyatta made was the political truce between him and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga - the popular handshake - noting that it’s good and all Jubilee members support it because it saved the country from chaos.
Muchiri, however, said because the President did not consult the other stakeholders on the mode of the handshake operations, the move has brought in the confusion and the division the party is facing now.
The lawmaker, who is a supporter of Deputy President William Ruto, said the handshake portrays Odinga as deputy to the President and at times he looks like his equal "while everybody knows Ruto is the official deputy president".
“The president should have sat together with his deputy and those parties which dissolved to form Jubilee and told them the country can't continue the way it was, and that was why he reconciled with Odinga. This way the handshake would have got a lot of support,” Muchiri said.
Muchiri said Raila should have been facilitated to do his work as the Opposition leader without harassment and to bring forth his recommendations on constitutional changes like in the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Jubilee and Nasa should have discussed them and the whole country would be involved, he said.
He said it would not have been good for constitutional changes to be carried out without Odinga’s input because "he has a big role to play in highlighting the shortcomings in the governance like in the economy among others".
Odinga has come in to support some issues that some Jubilee members are not supporting, the MP said, citing the new curriculum which he said is put in place before agreement by stakeholders.
Muchiri said that the 8-4-4 system which is being changed has been quite bothersome and thus there is no need of replacing it with another system without enough consultations.
He said it’s difficult to tell where the country is headed and that Jubilee has issues. Kenyans are watching closely what is happening, he added.
(Edited by R.Wamochie)