MUDAVADI STATEMENT ON ODM'S CURRENT KATIBA

Mudavadi is essentially issuing a veiled threat at ODM. When ODM submitted its documents at the Registrar of Political Parties yesterday, the documentation were signed by the ODM Chairman Henry Kosgey. Last time I checked, Kosgey had also fallen out with his party leader.

The tone of Mudavadi's statement suggests that Mudavadi is no longer an ODM insider but rather a third party observing things from the outside. Very strange and unusual given Mudavadi is officially a NEC member and the party deputy leader. Mudavadi is also an elected ODM delegate. Why would he ignore party channels to air his grevances with the party? Is he being controlled by remote gadgets?

Would Mudavadi rather see ODM time barred for submitting application to the Registrar because the constitution has to be amended to suit his own personal preference? Was Mudavadi not part of the same delegates who passed this constition in 2008 at the Bomas NDC declaring the Party Leadr the sole presidential candidate?

It appears to me then his decision to run for president and push for the party nomination rules to be changed is an afterthought and not a long term plan.

My view is that Mudavadi's declaration to vie for the ODM presidential ticket against Raila Odinga technically knocked him out of contention to being Raila's running mate. The same applies if Mudavadi were to defeat Raila in the primaries. Thus, this gives the two candidates the chance to further strengthen their portfolios by slelecting individuals who add value to their candidacies. The net result is that the party gains either way.

I have been telling anyone who cares to listen that Mudavadi was not the best running mate for Raila., let alone the best candidate for ODM. Mudavadi was a candidate nominated by forces opposed to ODM forming the next government.

We shall now await Mudavadi's final ultimatum to the party and his eventual defection by a handful of MPs to the other side. It has been a long time coming. Not so helpful to put the party on needless tenterhooks.

Phil,
I think that Mudavadi is in for a rude shock. He will be replaced and things will simply move on. I however think that he would still make a good running mate for Raila.
What if ODM replaced him with eg Martha karua, Peter Kenneth or even Franklin Bett or Wetangula? I guess he would be toast.

Raila is popular not on account of his association with Mudavadi, sö the man should chill.

If everybody had to modify the party constitution to fit themselves, it would be a mess.

What a joke. The guy is behaving like kalonzo prior to snatching ODMs certificate

Kibisu Kabatesi once disowned a statement issued by his counterpart in the OPM after visit to Bondo by President Yoweri Museveni. All of his statements are issued after approval by his boss whom he directly reports to. What Kibisu says directly reflects the feelings of Mudavadi.



Of course they do. Thet participated in the ODM NDC that gave birth to this constitution that has that 'contentious' clause. I am shocked that a person with 'presidential ambitions' did not see this until last week when James Orengo drew their attention to this clause.



Even if ODM were to change its nomination rules to suit Mudavadi's wishes, you can rest assured there will still be unfounded complaints from his camp. There are good reasons for this and these reasons do not emanate from within the ODM fraternity but rather from outside. No rewards for making guesses here.



As a mattter of fact, the Legal committee constituted by both sides of the presidential candidates is working towards crafting the amendments and these are to be presented to the National Executive Committee for deliberation and endorsement (if OK) and then to be passed on to the National Governing Council, which then calls the National Delegates Congress (highest organ of the party) to approve the amendments for publication into the new constitution. In between, there are legal notices to be issued some lasting weeks, months, etc. These are party organs that are in the ODM constitution and cannot be ignored. The earliest this amendment Mudavadi wants can only happen sometime after August 2012.



Membership in a political party is voluntary. Participation in the affairs of a political party means acceptance of its rules, regulations and constitutionality. This is not by any means a love affair or a marriage. Mudavadi has to make decisions that will enable him move out of the shadow of Raila Odinga. If that means leaving ODM, then so be it.



He understands that. But he is caught between satisfying the loyal ODM fraternity on one hand and that of paying his debts to the kings of impunity on the other, the same forces that forced him to quit the Rainbow Alliance in 2002, with disastrous results that he seems to have forgotten after being given the DPM flag. Is this the thank you Mudavadi wants to give to ODM members who have shown faith in him over the last few years?



True, but no one will be given preferential treatment simply because their names have initial MM. All members are equal. But you are right, the ODM secretariat has been a huge let down. Not the way to run a party aiming to form government.

so the way to do business is to bend to individual whims? they tried with ruto didn't work, what makes you think Muds will be satisfied? what stops any self-seeking member from making similar demands? the party already made its intention clear by notifiying the registrar is this not fair enough?

This is a test of democratic principles for ODM.
Mudavadi is up against a squad of court jesters who rather remind me of King Rehoboam's advisors (for those familiar with the bible).

You have to give credit to the court jesters and their fairy tales though.The Raila assasination plot/fable has deflected the publicity over the internal woes of ODM.

I'm joining the Mudavadi debate rather late, so I have missed quite a few things. Can someone explain to me why Mudavadi, if he wishes to be ODM's candidate, simply doesn't challenge Raila for the leadership or whatever of the party? Mudavadi seems to have had no problems before with ODM's procedures, and it doesn't seem reasonable to expect that a party will change those every time they don't suit a particular person's ambitions.

There is due process and procedure that Mudavadi is pretending he does not know about... The ODM party has made commitments through the party NEC to make changes, a team of legal experts have been deputised to draft the necessary changes, the party sec gen has submitted a notice to the registrar of parties, the key word here is compliance, compliance, compliance.....

At least two months will elapse before the change that Mudavadi demands can be ratified by the NDC before they are then submitted to the registrar of parties... If we wait for all this to happen before ODM applies for formal registration like Mudavadi is now demanding....wait a minute, is this the new GEMA/KAMATUSA/ strategy...? You do the arithmetics....


According to the Political Parties Act of 2011...

Notification of changes, alterations in constitution etc. of political party.

20. (1) Where a fully registered political party intends to change or amend—

(a) its constitution;

(b) its rules and regulations;

(c) the title, name or address of any party official; or

(d) its name, symbol, slogan or colour,

it shall notify the Registrar of its intention and the Registrar shall, within fourteen days after the receipt of the notification, cause a notice of the intended change or alteration to be published in the Gazette.

(2) The political party giving notification under sub-section (1) shall publish such notification in at least two daily newspapers having nationwide circulation.

(3) Upon the expiry of thirty days from the date of publication of the notice in subsection (1), the political party may, after taking into account any representations received from the public under subsection (1) and (2), effect the change or alteration in accordance with its constitution and rules.

www.kenyalaw.org/klr/index.php?id=641

Open Letter to Hon. Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi

Dear Hon. Mudavadi:

I feel compelled to once again write to you Mr. Deputy Prime Minister.

In my previous communication to you about two months ago, I noted a number of things that are worth repeating if anything to put what I am about to convey to you in proper context as I am sure you have probably forgotten what it is I said, the busy man you are and that’s assuming you received my letter.

You served as one of our country’s youngest ministers back in 1989, having succeeded your late father as M.P. for Sabatia and you have now made your way to serving as our Deputy Prime Minister.

You also to this day remain the holder of the dubious title of “Shortest Serving Vice President” in our country.

Indeed, many had politically written you off, following the 2002 elections in which the country loudly said no to you and then KANU presidential candidate and now fellow Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.

To be fair and in hindsight, that was more about ending the Moi regime than a judgement of you individually beyond your decision to accept the VP running mate position—something many a politician of the day would have done, anyway.

To your wisdom and wise counsel, however, you regrouped in time and aligned yourself with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) where having received 391 votes to Raila’s 2,656 for party nomination, Raila made you his running mate for the 2007 elections.

The rest, as they say, is history but a few things need to be noted:

First, you have served the country well as one of our two Deputy Prime Ministers.

Indeed, a convincing case can be made you have served more effectively and accomplished more as DPM than your colleague Uhuru Kenyatta.

Second, unlike many in your situation, you have not carried yourself as one who believes holding public office is an entitlement by virtue of family background.

Instead, you have curved yourself a path to political and business success not necessarily all owing to the fact you were born to privilege but in spite of it.

No one can say, however, that your rise to where you are has not been due to that very fact of your family background.

That you have been the beneficiary of a privileged family background is true but there is nothing wrong with that and neither is it something not to be proud of as many others born to same or similar background have either wasted away or otherwise not accomplished much in life.

Third, you are once again placed in a situation where you must draw upon the same wisdom and counsel as you did back in 2005 when you decided to warm up-to and join ODM albeit with one major distinction:

When I last wrote to you this, I stated that the decision you had to make was far more delicate and complicated at the same time than the one you had to make back in 2005 which few would disagree it was the only wise decision you could have made at that time were you to have any chance of reviving yourself politically.

That decision was whether or not to aggressively seek ODM nomination and therefore the presidency of our country.

I indicated to you that the prevailing wisdom between and among most ODM members and supporters, is that you should not challenge Raila for ODM nomination.

However, you have insisted on doing that and have couched your desire to do this under a need to have “internal democracy” within ODM.

I also shared with you that that there those opposed to your quest to challenge Raila who believe you are either compromised by Raila’s and ODM enemies or that you are being misled to believing you can win the presidency when, in fact, your chances of winning the presidency are far much less than Raila’s, given any objective analysis of the current political climate and dynamics.

In response to these concerns which were also expressed elsewhere, you repeatedly assured ODM members and supporters that yours was a genuine desire to give ODM an alternative to consider in deciding who the party’s flag-bearer should be and you even made very positive statements about the party leader Raila to the effect you were not going to say anything negative or try to undermine his own quest.

Based on these pronouncements and assurances, those who were doubting you came on board with the idea that you should challenge Raila for the nomination.

Indeed, many others who were previously against the idea were also convinced by what you were saying and agreed to support the idea believing this will distinguish ODM from the rest of the parties as a party that is open to unencumbered exercise of democracy as you yourself wanted to show.

Unfortunately, however, every indication is you have now morphed into someone determined to get the nomination under your terms and if that is not going to be, then you are threatening to leave ODM.

This is wrong for several reasons.

First, you are undermining your own credibility.

You cannot demand to seek nomination as party flag-bearer in the name of “internal democracy” yet start making demands that are in by themselves inconsistent and contrary to the rules and principles of democracy.

Your main complaint now is that ODM has not amended its constitution to remove the provision that currently provides that the party leader is also automatically the presidential candidate for the party.

You are quoted in the papers that you were “shocked” and deem it a “betrayal” because ODM filed its Parties Act compliance documents without amending the constitution as you are demanding.

However, this is an unfair characterization of what ODM has done.

While its true the ODM constitution was supposed to be amended before filing of the documents, it’s also true this was not possible for reasons that you know and, more importantly, Secretary General Anyang Nyong’o advised the Registrar during the filing that the provision in question will be amended.

Prof. Nyong’o also noted there was no hurry in doing so and the fact as you know is there are ongoing efforts between your camp of ODM and Raila’s camp to reach an agreeable formula to pick the party’s flag-bearer.

There is no rush to do this.

Nobody knows when the elections will be held; they could be held in March 2013 as the constitutional court ruled or they could be held in December 2012 as super-majority of Kenyans expect.

That being the case, we are several months away from ODM having to pick its presidential candidate and in time to conduct a vigorous campaign.

Would you not agree that if both you and Raila are committed to ODM and if ODM’s highest decision making organ is comprised of people of reason with the party’s interests at heart first and foremost and further that the party’s members who in one form or another will be voting to select a nominee that if they, too are people of reason with the party’s interests at heart, if all these are true as one must assume they are, then you would agree that no matter how long it takes, the party will decide for itself the best way to nominate its flag-bearer and do so accordingly?

If on the other hand you believe that some or all of this is not true, then that would be a shocking condemnation of the party coming from you of all people.

Second, by threatening to leave or at least hinting you want to leave if things don’t go your way; can you articulate a single reason why you think leaving would give you better prospects for the presidency other than teaming up with Raila’s enemies to “stop” his being reelected as president?

There is nothing wrong for someone in your position not to want to be president; in fact, it would be unusual for that not to be the case.

However, I am sure I am not telling you something new to say you also must be realistic in those ambitions or expectations.

I heard from a very reliable source that either you or a person very close to you did not like my saying in my last communication to you that you are being mislead to believing you can win the presidency, and saying that your chances are much less than Raila’s, which I have again re-stated above.

This is actually true, especially when you look and see who is the most excited at the prospect of your nomination.

I do not in any way intend to say this to slight or otherwise imply that you are not presidential material; you are.

What I am talking about is both realistically and objectively looking at the circumstances as they exist and other factors which mostly point to the same conclusion.

For example, a majority of those so excited about your prospects of being an ODM nominee are not ODM members or supporters.

They are enemies of ODM and many are now cleverly camouflaging themselves as ODM supporters just so they can cheer you on hopefully to victory as the nominee.

The truth is, and this goes without saying, these ODM enemies/late ODM converts are not excited about your potential nomination because they like you or because they think of you as great presidential material; n0; they only see you as the best possible means to knock Raila off the presidential trail and pave way for their preferred candidate.

While these ODM enemies are excited and cheering you on in with plans to without shame abandon you upon nomination for their preferred candidate, their benefactors are dishing or are ready to dish tokens of money for the most hungry with intent to manipulate and influence the nomination outcome while the going theory among a number of doubters is that you have been compromised with more than just money as some are talking about things akin to letting sleeping dogs lie or simply economic and financial blackmail.

That may or may not be true, in fact, but the perception is there and sometimes perception is as good or bad as real.

Third, your threatening or at least hinting as of now that you will leave ODM unless you get your way is wrong because it either overestimates what your departure will entail for ODM in terms of damage or it underestimates what the damage will be to you politically.

An American politician and former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, the late Tip O’Neill coined the phrase “all politics is local,” which which encapsulates the principle that a politician’s success is directly tied to his ability to understand and influence the issues of his constituents, which by extension means you must take care of your home base before you venture into national politics.

Although you have group of strong backers from your home base that are urging, if not pushing you to seek the nomination, you have equally a significant number that think your threatening or hinting to leave ODM is a bad thing.

In a publicly distributed open letter to you, one has said the following: “I am a Luhya like you, but you do not hold my vote by the ropes. I will vote party and candidate that i feel best represents my interests and the interests of the Kenyans at large, most of which revolve around job creation, poverty eradication, health, education and food security. You are not a Luhya kingpin, you are just Musalia Mudavadi. There are some who hope that your departure from ODM will weaken it. It may not. Remember we have many who can be elected and take up the running-mate of ODM. Be wise, mwikhula wa Musalia.”

Another fellow Luhya, and an ODM delegate, has also publicly said the following: “I am equally perturbed of insinuations that the Luhyas are anxious. We are not and i say these with adamant clarity/ I have talked to Andati, the Branch Secretary of KAKAMEGA Branch and he is comfortable. This is the situation with Butiko the VIHIGA COUNTY CHAIRMEN and Many Sub Branch chairmen in Bungoma, Kakamega, and Busia. I am not being naive but noting that the position of Kizito, Chikati and Khaniri does not reflect the Luhya position. It reflects the position of the gate keepers of MM. I would love to have MM in the party but if he is listening to self seekers to ship out, i would loose sleep about it though i will be disappointed because our easier winning card is a Raila Mudavadi card.”

These are not isolated views; there are many from Luhyland holding the same views and I am sure you are aware of this.

I could but do not wish to provide a deeper analysis of the meaning of these two viewpoints but the short of it is, they both go to show even more strongly why your threatened or intended departure is not only wrong, it will be a big mistake.

Everyone makes mistakes and I am sure you have made yours.

What everyone doesn’t do, is to make the same mistake twice.

Please do not make another mistake–not one of this magnitude with all its political implications not just for you, but for ODM and the country.

As everyone who cares about ODM and its prospects to once again sweep the country with victories in 2012 or 2013 says, you are better staying in ODM and taking whatever outcome awaits.

No matter what that outcome is, you will still have a political future far much better and predictable than one after decamping, if any.

I am praying for you to make the right decision and its a big one to make because its not about you and Raila only; it’s also about our country because a united and stronger ODM is a better ODM for taking over the leadership of the country.

I really hope you do.

God bless you.

Samuel N. Omwenga, Esq.

omwenga.com/2012/04/11/an-open-letter-to-hon-wycliffe-musalia-mudavadi-deputy-prime-minister-e-g-h-m-p/

Mank,

One thing I learned early on in life when I was learning English was, if you are to criticize someone in the form of pointing out an error either in the use of English or its form, you better make sure you are not only right, but there cannot be any question or doubt about that.

You say "you communicate with" and that you "you do not communicate to."

Here is what someone who you are the first person since his high school days decades ago attempting to correct his English can tell you authoritatively: you can actually communicate with, as well as communicate to.

I have communicated to Mudavadi and the rest of the people reading my blog.

I don't have to get feedback that's why it's on open letter and let me give you the benefit of doubt that you know why we sometimes utilize an open letter as opposed to communicating privately in addition to not desiring feedback.

If you don't know, find out.

If I have a matter I need to communicate with him or with anyone else privately, I know how to do that and do so all the time.

If there is anything I need his feedback, I know how to get it, too.

In fact, if you read the blog, you would have noticed I said that a "source" told me how either he or a person close to him took something I said in my last communication to him.

In journalistic or blog speak, the "source" could have actually been him or the person close to him.

My point is, your purported counsel and criticism is out of place you are better off either providing a rejoinder to the issues I raise in the open letter or leave it alone.

P.S. Your assertion about self-serving is nonsensical; self-serving for what; how does communicating to Mudavadi in the form of an open letter serve my personal interests? What about the myriads of other open letters I have penned over the years to various leaders, including former US President George Bush in connection with PEV which was actually personally hand delivered to him by none other than Dick Cheney? What personal interest did they serve me? Your assertion says more about your motive for this purported criticism than anything else.

I am not saying you can't criticize yours truly; you can but this was wholly and totally out of place and uncessary.

Phew!! Omwenga, that was a long winded piece of blackmail that Mudavadi may ever read. As already pointed out by a member, it sounds more like self-preservation than anything else.

Anyhow, I do not find anything that indicates that Mudavadi might have wanted rules changed to favor him, but to level the field for a free and fair contest. During Moi time, he believed and still do even today that there was democracy in KANU and therefore people did not need other parties. Together with Raila and others, Kenyans told him no, we needed more space.

We did not do this because we wanted a headstart against moi, no, but because we wanted a level playing field. That is what Mudavadi is asking of ODM. How do you get into a contest while knowing fairly well that the rules do not allow you to even try in the first place?

That is how upside-down Raila camps thinking is. They want Musalia to continue campaigning on the promise that the rules will be changed later. Only a fool can accede to such. We have been around long enough to know that such things don't work. We saw it with IPPG, Narc MoU and lately ODM-Muslim MoU. It will be even worse with the stringent timelines in the political parties act. Mudavadi will be taken in circles untill such a time that he not make a move. Thats when the Midiwos and the Kajwangs will resurface in their true colors.

Balala's counsel must ring very true in Mudavadi's ear especially now. We have told him in both dholuo and english that ODM is Raila and Raila is ODM, he doesn't like that, shauri yake. The party is already registered with those draconian rules, ata do?

Phil,
From where I sit I can't tell if it will be good or bad for ODM, what do you reckon?