• Jubilee is a party that is governed by its constitution which had the imprints of all leaders, who are members, including those supporting the DP.
• For now, all those who are holding positions are interim officials because the party is yet to hold any internal elections.
I have been watching keenly the renewed war of words pitting the allies of Deputy President William Ruto’s 2022 presidential bid and those coalescing around President Uhuru Kenyatta’s camp.
Allow me to first make these observations. Before the outbreak of Covid-19 disease in Kenya, the latter camp continued to rally Kenyans behind Uhuru’s legacy projects — the handshake, the Building Bridges Initiative process, the Big Four agenda and the war on corruption.
The DP troops, on the other hand, would resort to what many would interpret as returning the country to election campaign mood.
Back to the latest war, I knew that it was only a matter of time before politics of backstabbing and scheming in the Jubilee Party disrupted a lull that began when the first case of coronavirus was reported in Kenya.
First, Ruto allies alleged the DP had been sidelined in the in the fight against the disease. This is because he did not attend a number of press conferences convened by the President to brief the country on the progress made by his government to combat the disease. Uhuru would also unveil new measures aimed at containing the spread of the virus.
But the DP played safe: “My working relationship with President Uhuru Kenyatta remains very cordial. I have been consulting him regularly on this issue of Covid-19 and we are reading from the same script”.
But listen to this: “We want the President to break his silence and denounce Jubilee secretary general Raphael Tuju and the party vice chairman David Murathe”. Reason? The two have been disrespecting and contradicting the DP. How? Where is the evidence?
Yes, Ruto is the Jubilee deputy party leader. But as we know, Jubilee is a party that is governed by its constitution which had the imprints of all leaders, who are members, including those supporting the DP. For now, all those who are holding positions are interim officials because the party is yet to hold any internal elections.
Therefore, the constitution gives the party leader, President Kenyatta, the powers to replace the interim officials. This is the position that Tuju and Murathe have since maintained. To me, this does not amount to disrespecting the DP. They have a right to interpret and defend the party constitution.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Social commentator and blogger