- Junet Mohamed said it is laughable that both Musalia and Wetangula could agree to append their signatures into ‘a con scheme’.
- He said getting 70 per cent of Luhya votes is tall order for both Musalia and Wetangula.
Image: DOUGLAS OKIDDY
The Azimio coalition has hit out at the Deputy President for duping ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi and his Ford Kenya counterpart Moses Wetang'ula into an impractical power deal.
Azimio council secretary Junet Mohamed said it is laughable that both Musalia and Wetang'ula could agree to append their signatures into ‘a con scheme’, which promises them positions outside the constitution.
The National Assembly minority whip spoke in Malindi on Thursday, a day after the Kenya Kwanza power-sharing agreement was made public.
He took a jibe at DP William Ruto accusing him of hypocrisy, questioning his decision to create new centres of powers despite castigating the Building Bridges Initiative.
The DP had decampaigned the BBI law change initiative spearheaded by President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM boss Raila Odinga on account that it was burdening ordinary Kenyans with additional seats.
“Ruto told Kenyans that there will be no sharing of positions in his lineup. Ruto’s party was to operate without positions but everyone is walking around offering services.
“Those services were to be offered by kina mama mboga and boda boda people not Mudavadi, Wetang'ula, Kingi and Mutua,” Mohamed said.
The legislator said Ruto is trying to re-invent his own BBI and it can’t work.
In the Kenya Kwanza deal filed at the office of the Registrar of Political Parties, Wetangula’s Ford Kenya would bag the National Assembly speaker position.
Mudavadi’s party will get the yet to be created prime cabinet secretary, an equivalent of prime minister.
The deal also gave the Senate speaker to Governor Amason Kingi’s PAA party.
There is also to be a 30 per cent government appointments reserved for Mudavadi and Wetang'ula on condition that they deliver up to 70 per cent votes from Western Kenya.
The Suna East MP said the 70 per cent requirement is a mirage and amounts to conmanship.
“I want to repeat this, Mudavadi, Wetang'ula, Kingi and Mutua have been conned by Ruto. They have been allocated positions which Ruto said will not exist.
"They have taken positions that were to be occupied by mama mboga, now mama mboga has no space, boda boda has no space. Their space has been taken by the four leaders,” he said.
The legislator was accompanied by Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho during the Thursday morning press conference.
Joho said the deal has exposed Ruto as a master of deceit in the current political dispensation.
Elsewhere, ODM secretary general and Nairobi Senate hopeful Edwin Sifuna said tying positions to how regions vote is unlawful.
“All Kenyans deserve appointment to public service and development in their areas regardless of how they vote because we all pay tax,” he said.
Separately in Parliament, the Azimio team said it is “now clear to the public and all, that UDA and Kenya Kwanza have become professional turncoats.”
“They say one thing and convince the public that they are honest. But in actual fact, their claims are a mixture of sense and political nonsense,” the leaders said in a statement read by Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi.
He said Kenya Kwanza has “become political marketeers that pimp one claim by day and another claim by night.”
The leaders said it is time Kenyans drew the line of “deceit, fraud and lies, which has become the currency of their politics.”
“If we have bought their lies before, today as the democratically elected representatives of the people, we draw the line,” the team said.
The MPs said Kenyans should also “draw the line on constitutional deceit” citing the message that the Ruto team carried during their anti-BBI campaigns.
“BBI was not about positions. It was about inclusion. It was not about arbitrary creation of constituencies; it was about fixing under-representation. It was not about ballooning budgets, it was about equitable allocation of resources,” they said.
Wandayi was accompanied by lawmakers John Mbadi (Suba South), Richard Onyonka (Kitutu Chache), Jeremiah Kioni (Ndaragwa), James Koyoo (Muhoroni), Charles Kilonzo (Yatta), Tom Kajwang (Ruaraka) and Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang.
They said the Azimio side has been vindicated by the current happenings where UDA is picking concepts from the drive in its August 9 plans.
“UDA and its appendages opposed these amendments. In their rhetoric, they said that BBI was inspired by the devil and his brothers. Yet they knew that BBI was good for country and good for them as well,” the MPs said.
The legislators said if BBI was good for UDA and they are now implementing it, why did they oppose it in the first place?
“Why we call this political deceit is because they accused us of creating an imperial presidency with BBI. But in reality, they were the ones creating an imperial presidency and blaming it on us,” they said.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)