Joining Ruto's Kenya Kwanza not option - Kingi's PAA party says

Pamoja African Alliance Party (PAA), associated with Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi, has dismissed claims that it is joining the Kenya Kwanza Alliance.

This comes amidst plans to exit the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Alliance

PAA party officials led by George Kithi, Kilifi Governor candidate, and William Kingi, deputy governor and Mombasa governor candidate, confirmed that they are planning to exit Azimio but said they will not be joining any other coalition.

This comes even as the Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu said PAA cannot ditch Azimio.

Nderitu said her office has no mandate to degazette PAA and MCC parties from the coalition.

Earlier, there were speculations that Kingi's party was joining Deputy President William Ruto's Kenya Kwanza Alliance.

Addressing a press conference in Watamu after meeting with PAA candidates on Friday, the leaders said reports on joining Ruto's camp are false.

Kithi said they have been in negotiations with and within the Azimio coalition on the status of the accommodation for PAA's political space.

However, he said the accommodation has not met the standards and the bare minimums which they had set for themselves as a party.

“PAA stands for the common good of the people of Kenya but more importantly it propagates and instigates the common good of the people of the Coast. We have land issues that we stand for because historically, we have had injustices meted out on the people of the Coast. We have also had the issue of the economics of the Coast as a region,” he said.

He said some of the issues that they have been advocating for as people of the coast have not met, heard adding that they are not satisfied with the way they are being treated.

The Kilifi Governor hopeful said it is because of the aforementioned issues that they chose to exit the Azimio coalition.

He said they wrote to the registrar of political parties to exclude them from the coalition membership since they have the freedom of association and disassociation.

“Our demands shall remain the same. We shall join and remain constituents’ members of Azimio only when those conditions are met," he said.

Kithi said their announcement should not be miscontrued as plans to join any other coalitions.

“We are not joining any other coalition as we exit the Azimio coalition. Period. We are in no discussion with any other coalition and we don’t intend to join any other coalition,” he said.

Kithi said PAA is a party worth it's salt and therefore they would continue to stand with the people of the Coast as they have always done.

On his part Kingi who is the current deputy governor of Mombasa said they joined the Azimio in support of Raila Odinga’s presidency but they have not been treated well as equal partners in the Coalition.

“To say the truth our issues have not been taken seriously by the coalition and we had hopes in good faith that the issues would be accommodated,” he said.

Kingi said the structures of the Coalition clearly show PAA is not taken seriously as they are nowhere on the list.

“We have written a letter seeking to withdraw from the Coalition of Azimio not because we want to but because our demands have not been addressed by the Azimio coalition,” he said.

Garashi Ward Member of County Assembly Peter Ziro on his part emphasized that the PAA party would never join Kenya Kwanza.

“You should insist that we are not going to Kenya Kwanza. If we shall not be accommodated in Azimio we shall remain as PAA,” he said.