• Mudavadi says ODM public pronouncements are increasingly juvenile. When they are not juvenile they are senile or both.
• Raila says Musalia is easily the biggest baggage ODM party leader has had to carry since 2002
ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi yesterday launched a scathing attack on ODM Leader Raila Odinga describing him as the “biggest political burden to the people of Kenya".
The former Finance Minister also threatened to sue Raila for linking him to the Goldenberg scandal.
Mudavadi said Raila was not grateful for the support ANC and other parties had given him over the years and "should now look elsewhere for beasts of burden, as he seems to be doing".
"It is ironic that a person who is totally incapable of travelling even the shortest distance on his own political fuel in Kibra should accuse anybody else of being "a political burden," Mudavadi said through the ANC secretary general Barrack Muluka.
But Raila, through ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna, said Mudavadi was behaving like a jilted lover.
"This outburst must be seen in the context of a jilted lover, a parasite abandoned by its long-suffering host. Musalia is easily the biggest baggage our party leader has had to carry since 2002. Now that Raila has taken away that support, Musalia needs to be a man," Raila said in a statement signed by Sifuna.
The exchanges follow heated campaigns in Kibra in which Mudavadi accused Raila of shielding corrupt governors.
The governors the former VP was referring to were Makueni's Kivutha Kibwana, Kitui's Charity Ngilu and Kirinyaga's Anne Waiguri who campaigned over the weekend for ODM's Imran Okoth.
While none of the three has been charged in court, all of them have previously been questioned by the ethics agency.
Raila is fighting to retain the Kibra parliamentary seat while Mudavadi and Deputy President William Ruto have pledged to end ODM's hold of the poor constituency.
Ruto is backing McDonald Mariga while Mudavadi is fronting Eliud Owalo against Raila's Okoth.
Yesterday Raila's party linked Mudavadi to the biggest corruption scandal in Kenya, claiming that the scam happened because of his spinelessness.
"He forgot that at every given opportunity, he has declared his innocence on the Goldenberg saga, and has sought the country's indulgence in treating him as a victim of circumstances, innocent till proven guilty.
"By passing judgment on some governors, merely for choosing to side with the ODM candidate in the field, Mudavadi denies others the same indulgence he has sought over Goldenberg," the statement read.
Mudavadi said Raila's political mask has fallen off.
"His time is up. The whole country knows that Raila has ridden on the backs of others in 2013, and 2017. He is trying to do the same in Kibra," Mudavadi said.
The ANC leader also said it was wrong for Raila to campaign for the Building Bridges Initiative report before it was released.
"Are we supposed to surrender our faculties to some demi-god and support things that we have not seen?
"ODM seems to be suffering from the Nile factor. Their public pronouncements are increasing juvenile. When they are not juvenile they are senile or both," added the Mudavadi.