There's no room for fights in talks, Malalah slams Kioni

UDA Secretary General Cleophas Malalah has taken on his counterpart in the Jubilee Party Jeremiah Kioni over an altercation he had with EALA MP Hassan Omar during bipartisan talks on Thursday.

Kioni and Omar are part of the talks committee that is seeking to find a truce between the Azimio coalition and the Kenya Kwanza government over differences that resulted from the 2022 polls.

During the talks on Thursday at the Bomas of Kenya, the two engaged in a war of words and almost came to blows after Omar took on Kioni over his remarks earlier in the week that the talks were going nowhere and he would have bowed out had he been in Raila Odinga's position.  

But speaking on Friday during the opening of a UDA office in Narok County, Malalah said there is no place for fist fights at the talks.

"If you have ideas, challenge us with ideas intellectually, give us your ideologies. You cannot be in a respectable meeting like that and you want to engage the chairman of the ruling party in a fistfight," he said.

Kioni is said to have stormed out of the meeting after the altercation.

But on Friday, he said he still stands by the remarks he made at the meeting and got on Omar's nerves.

The former Ndaragwa MP said the talks should be centered around the cost of living which was the sole reason Kenyans went to the streets and prompted the opposition and the government to have dialogue.

Speaking in an interview on Spice FM, Kioni said the issue of high taxes, the cost of fuel and the Finance Bill is still unresolved yet they are not part of the talks agenda.

"I said that I wouldn't want to sit in a situation where I feel like we are conning Kenyans. There are those who thought that shouldn't have been said but I am still saying it. What took us to Bomas and why people were killed was the cost of living. That's why people were demonstrating."

But Malalah said Kioni's altercation with Omar was "uncivilised and outright backward".

"Leave our vice chairperson, you must respect the vice chairperson of the UDA party," he said.

Delegation heads and national Delegation Committee co-chairs Kalonzo Musyoka (Azimio) and Kimani Ichung'wah (Kenya Kwanza) steered clear of the melee witnessed on Thursday.

The teams did not agree on the interim demands during the meeting as they prepared to continue talks on Friday where they heard presentations from interest groups.

Health workers were among those who presented their memoranda on Thursday.