President William Ruto has warned that all the current interim officials of the United Democratic Alliance party must be ready to face elections in December.
Details of the President's tough talk about UDA polls came to the fore hours after he made a surprise tour of the party's hustler centre headquarters.
Ruto, who is also the UDA party leader, held lengthy meetings with top officials until minutes before midnight on Tuesday.
The President's meetings could signal his deliberate plan to personally take charge of the UDA affairs and ensure foolproof elections later this year.
The party which was formed in 2021 but went on to romp into victory last year, is the country's biggest political movement going by its highest number of elected leaders.
A source at the Hustler Centre who attended the meeting confirmed to the Star that the President was clear on his expectations to the party officials.
"All interim officials must be subjected to elections and nobody should have any illusion that they are permanent," the source quoted Ruto as having warned the officials.
This was the first time that the President was making tough statements about the impending elections that are expected to test the ruling party's political muscles.
During the meeting, the UDA party leader also made it clear that he would personally monitor the progress of the preparations for the elections to guarantee reliability.
The President announced last week that the party will hold elections in December as part of the plans to strengthen itself.
“We are going to make sure that we build a national party that is going to unite the country so that we can eliminate the politics of ethnicity,” Ruto said when he opened the UDA offices in Nyeri.
UDA was formally registered in January 2021 by the Registrar of Political Parties after a successful name change from PDR.
This is the first time that the party will be conducting democratic elections for its national and grassroots officials since its formation.
In October 2021, the party opted for boardroom negotiations and picked 31 interim officials to run its affairs at the national level.
The planned elections come at a time when there is growing pressure for Kenya Kwanza affiliate parties to merge amid resistance.
