ODM has stirred controvery with its supposed plan to remove Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malalah of ANC as the Senate deputy minority leader.
While the Raila Odinga- led party has insisted there are plans to replace the vocal senator with one from the Coast, leaders from that region have denied any plans to seize the seat from Malala.
On Friday, ODM secretary general Edwin Sifuna said the Senate minority wing has lost confidence in Malalah and has resolved to remove him.
Sifuna said ODM, the largest party in the moribund Nasa coalition, has resolved to give the seat to the Coast.
“We met with Coast senators and we agreed we give them that seat. They will tell us whom they want to take it,” Sifuna said.
He said Malalah can no longer be trusted to represent the interests of the minority party in the Senate.
“To lead people, they must have confidence in you,” Malala told the Star on the phone.
Coast senators dismissed Sifuna’s assertions, however, saying their recent meeting with the ODM leader at his Capitol Hill office did not discuss Malala’s removal.
“That is not true. We never discussed anything like that. We only discussed the upcoming by-election in Msambweni,” Taita Taveta Senator Johannes Mwaruma said.
Malalah, a vocal ANC senator who once was a darling of ODM, recently has had run-ins with the party over his stand on the controversial revenue sharing formula.
Malala was a member of ‘Team Kenya’ – the group vehemently opposing the controversial formula cutting Sh17 billion allocation to 18 counties.
Raila criticised him for opposing the formula despite his Kakamega county ‘gaining’ in millions of shillings in the proposed method.
At one time, Raila blasted him for what he termed questionable integrity and allegedly stag-managing his dramatic arrest by DCI officers at his Kitengela home.
Malalah denied the claims and publicly wept during a Senate committee meeting with county security chiefs over Raila’s remarks that he stage-managed his own arrest.
Minority leader James Orengo (Siaya) and Minority Chief Whip Mutula Kilonzo Jnr (Makueni) did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking their comments.
On Friday, however, Sifuna said the planned removal of the former MCA has nothing to do with his stand on revenue sharing but with integrity issues.
“There are people like Mutula Kilonzo, they were on the same team with Malala, but he conducted himself with integrity. You have not heard anybody saying we are going to remove Mutula as minority chief whip,” he said.
Sifuna added, “So the question is that 'Ooh, somebody opposed the formula is not there. It’s a matter of confidence. For the specific reasons, you ask the members of the minority leader in the Senate.”
(Edited by V. Graham)
