PRESIDENT Uhuru Kenyatta’s TNA is holding back the collapse of the Jubilee Alliance into a single party ahead of the general election.
It had been proposed that the alliance formed just before the 2013 elections fuses into a single Jubilee Party on which Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto will defend their seats.
The ruling alliance currently comprises TNA, Ruto's URP, Kiraitu Murungi's Alliance Party of Kenya, Charity Ngilu's National Rainbow Coalition and Najib Balala's Republican Congress.
The other members are Grand National Unity, the Democratic Party, Ford People, Chama Cha Mzalendo and the Agano Party of Kenya.
Despite MPs’ amending the Political Parties Bill last month to safeguard the President and Deputy President’s term and legitimacy from legal challenges in the event the Jubilee parties merge into one, this remains problematic.
The Bill is now before the Senate since it also touches on the counties, which fall under the Senate’s oversight. If the senators concur with the MPs, then the Bill goes to the President for assent into law.
A section of TNA MPs have however disapproved of the merger plans and instead want the URP and other parties in the alliance to go it alone at the general election.
An MP who belongs to Uhuru's party spoke to the Star in confidence, saying that the President's TNA party and his deputy's URP will not merge but will work together.
“The thinking among TNA MPs is that we go to the elections as individual parties as opposed to a merger. This is the stand we have taken and we will be briefing our coalition bosses when we meet them,” the MP said yesterday.
Although the decision has not been made public, this means that the planned merger on whose ticket Uhuru and Ruto want to defend their presidency in 2017 will not take place amid deep mistrust in the ruling coalition.
However, the move has been dismissed by TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja and his URP counterpart Barre Shill as “self-seeking”.
Speaking to the Star on the phone, Sakaja said TNA will ratify its dissolution through the National Delegates’ Conference expected in December this year.
“Any other party that is not ready and willing to join us can remain behind,” said Sakaja.
He said that county meetings to plan the merger plans were on course as they wait for the changes to the Political Parties Bill to be finalized by the Senate.
“This is the route we have committed ourselves to, because we expect the parties to finalize their National Delegates’ Conventions by the end of the year. The reason for unity is much stronger for us,” Sakaja, a nominated MP, said.
He added, “Those opposed are getting restless because for fear of losing out in nominations because then, the competition will be intense.”
Shill, the Fafi MP, said that the political landscape in Kenya is individually based.
“When Uhuru, just like Raila, Kalonzo and Ruto, tell their people to follow a certain direction, they have no reason not to. Don't take these MPs seriously because over 70 percent of them will lose their seats,” Shill said.
The technical committee working on the merger plans that is headed by Meru Senator Kiraitu Murungi and former MP Noah Wekesa had planned the merger to happen by March this year.
A group of TNA MPs has been holding informal meetings to plan ahead of 2017.
The majority of them argue that it would mean nothing to have changes that allow last-minute defections then go ahead and lock the members in a basket.
“If this happens and then by all means you are unfairly denied a nomination certificate, where will you run to? Because the available option will be the opposition parties!” an MP exclaimed.
But Kieni MP Kanini Kega (TNA) supported the merger, arguing it will end the segmenting of the country into tribal parties.
"Two people cannot walk together if they don't have a firm agreement. To solemnize the agreement is to be in one party. It would be important that Jubilee forms that one single big movement," Kanini said.
Kieni reckons that former ruling party Kanu
once united the country and NARC also brought about the same hope to the people, but that hope was dashed within a year as they disintegrated into small parties.
TNA legislators opposed to the merger are afraid of nominations and this is the reason many small regional political parties are holding back.
"Members fear that if we have one big party and are rigged out in the nominations, then they will lose out, yet they are very popular with the people. Once that fear is laid and you know for sure that the nomination will be free and fair, there is no point of having those small parties,” he said.
He says TNA and URP were a good idea but JP is a better idea for the unity of the country.
