Strong individual parties are critical for a strong alliance. Ford Kenya, therefore, cannot fold to be a party in another party. We have never thought of it, haven’t discussed it, and don’t want to. We are going to stabilise our party and strengthen it to work in alliances in future. That is very critical to us.
We don’t want to return to the period before 1992 when we had a one-party system. That tends to create dictatorial tendencies. Kenya is now a multi-party democracy, which dictates that individual parties should be established and be able to compete.
We are thus in competition but we are also forming alliances with parties with which we share manifestos, ideals and goals. We are not going to fold at all. We have not even thought about it. We have never discussed it with anyone.
As Ford Kenya secretary general, I have urged our members to strengthen the party and our partners should do the same. Thereafter, we can meet and see where to continue building our alliances.
It is also worth noting the party has not been engaged officially in this matter. No one has written to me. No one has approached us directly. There was a time when we just heard of it. We have been hearing it in the media. I have heard colleagues in other parties talk about it at rallies.
They have not discussed it with us. Even if they were to do so, we would say no. We are already working together as Kenya Kwanza. A number of parties are in this alliance. We want to continue in this way for mutual respect of the parties. There is a difference between an alliance and the collapse of a party.
The fact that we are not willing to fold ours doesn’t mean we are uncooperative. We are just saying strong parties are critical to a formidable alliance. We saw this during the Narc era when President Mwai Kibaki [MHSRIP] ruled all those years. We saw it in Jubilee, too. Forcing parties to fold is killing multiparty democracy.
Ford Kenya secretary general and Tongaren MP spoke to the Star
