- In February, Ruto held the PG meeting with 139 legislators at his Karen residence where they laughed off a reported plot to impeach the DP.
- They also claimed there was a plot to assassinate Tangatanga MPs.
Image: DOUGLAS OKIDDY
Deputy President William Ruto on Thursday will host more than 100 allied MP at his Karen residence to discuss the political situation and the 2022 campaign road map.
MPs previously afraid to declare their support for Ruto, for fear of reprisal, are expected to be there, Ruto allies said.
Called the Parliamentary Group meeting, the assembly comes two days after the DP was blocked from traveling to Uganda by his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta. It was five hours of humiliation.
It will be closed to outsiders and the press.
On Thursday, Soy MP Caleb Kositany, a close DP ally and former Jubilee deputy secretary general, confirmed the meeting but declined to disclose the agenda.
“The meeting is there but you will have to wait until tomorrow (Thursday). We will issue a statement,” Kositany said.
MPs Kimani Ichung'wah (Kikuyu), Ndindi Nyoro (Kiharu) and David Sankok also confirmed the meeting.
“We confirm there is a meeting tomorrow but we don’t know the agenda. We don’t want to pre-empt,” Ichung’wah said.
Nyoro said, “We will discuss parliamentary matters.”
However, the Star established the 2022 elections, the recent ‘humiliation’ of the DP at Wilson Airport and the hustlers agenda in Parliament are atop the list.
“The political season has kicked in. We are going to discuss how to market the DP because 2022 is around the corner. We are done with Jubilee and are charting our own path,” a senator said.
Another MP disclosed the meeting will be attended by more than 140 MPs, including those that have always "feared to publicly come out to declare their support for the hustler movement.
“I can tell you after that meeting, we shall now hit the road. It will mark the beginning of the yellow movement,” the legislator said.
The DP’s director of communications Emmanuel Talaam said Ruto will take the MPs through the bottom-up economic model and divulge plans for the next elections.
The sentiments were reinforced by UDA communications director Wanjohi Githae.
"The prevailing political environment dictates that we hold a meeting," he .”
In February, Ruto held the Parliamentary Group meeting with 139 legislators at his Karen residence where they laughed off a reported plot to impeach the DP.
They also claimed a plot to assassinate Tangatanga MPs.
They asserted, without providing evidence, that police officers are being withdrawn from events attended by Ruto and the hit squad deployed to instigate targeted political violence.
“We demand this illegal hit squad be disbanded immediately,” the Tangatanga MPs said in a joint statement.
At the same time, the DP's allies warned the state was deliberately pushing the country towards the collapse of the rule of law and paralysis of oversight of institutions.
“Worrisome, we are witnessing the return of detention without trial through the misuse of the police and the criminal justice system where individuals are held without the benefit of a judicial hearing,” they said at the time.
Ruto also met the MPs last December when they poked holes in the proposals in the BBI Bill and articulated a raft of proposed changes.
Since the handshake with ODM leader Raila Odinga on March 9, 2018, the DP, Ruto has had run-ins with his boss. The latest was blocking him from travelling to Uganda.
Last year, key allies of the DP were removed from influential parliamentary leadership positions weakening his grip on the two houses of Parliament.
(Edited by V. Graham