How Kilifi's Amason Kingi outwitted DP Ruto allies
Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi with Deputy President William Ruto at a past function in Rabai, Kilifi.
What you need to know:
- Governor Kingi has taken the initiative to bring coastal parties together and lobby leaders from all the political divide to embrace the idea of Coast unity.
Tangatanga MPs were planning to join Kadu-Asili, then use it to negotiate with Deputy President William Ruto, but Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi sabotaged the plan, Nyali MP Mohammed Ali has revealed.
The leaders had settled on Kadu-Asili as their party, but this fell through when its officials backed out, opting to join talks for a coastal unity party, which has since hit a snag.
In an interview with Sunday Nation, Mr Ali said that the plan had been mooted to have the Mr Ruto allied legislators, including the ODM rebels, jump ship to Kadu-Asili for their 2022 elections.
“Mr Kingi got wind of our plans and managed to convince the party leaders that the coastal party agenda was the best way forward. That saw the Kadu officials develop cold feet and we had to abandon this plan,” Mr Ali said, adding that the Ruto-leaning leaders will go on elections using a different outfit.
Governor Kingi has taken the initiative to bring coastal parties together and lobby leaders from all the political divide to embrace the idea of Coast unity. He pushed for the merger of four political parties or formation of a coalition ahead of 2022 General Election.
The four parties are Kadu-Asili, Umoja Summit Political Party of Kenya (USPK), Shirikisho Party and Republican Congress Party.
Thrown into confusion
Last year, Kadu-Asili was thrown into confusion after Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa and her Kilifi North counterpart Owen Baya, who belong to Coast Tangatanga political outfit allied to Dr Ruto, “invaded the party without the knowledge of its leadership” to an extent of amending its constitution to fit their interests and use it as their 2022 political outfit.
This prompted the Kadu-Asili party leader Gerald Thoya to seek intervention from the political party’s registrar Ann Nderitu over “illegal infringements” into his party by people he believes intends to "throw the party into political and leadership dispute”.
The Tangatanga legislators, who have since ditched the intention after setting their eyes on United Democratic Alliance (UDA) associated with Dr Ruto to contest for various seats in 2022, had then begun an aggressive campaign to drum support for Kadu-Asili and recruit new members in Malindi, Kilifi, Magarini, Ganze, Kaloleni, Rabai, Mtwapa and Mariakani.
Pulled out of talks
Last Saturday, Mr Thoya pulled out of the Governor Kingi-led talks, saying his party had resolved to go solo in the coming elections after the discussions hit a snag following disagreement on the formation of a coalition to use.
"So far, the discussions have not yielded any fruit and time is running out, the Kadu-Asili Party has agreed to shelve plans to move forward to rebuild the party ahead of the 2022 General Election. We cannot keep on waiting for something whose implementation has proved futile after the four parties disagreed on crucial issues on implementation of the unity cause," he said
But Mr Ali says that they will not seek the party’s ticket, given the recent change of events, because of the ‘betrayal’.
“Even if they pulled out of those talks, we cannot go back to them because they betrayed us. Today, we could have been talking of Kadu-Asili as the Coast party,” he said, adding, “With one year to the election, there is no magic we can do right now to think about any political party, so we must swim our way and think about it in future.”
The Nyali MP admits that it might now be difficult for the region to negotiate for post 2022 positions as a block, mostly because of the fragmented nature of political parties and candidates.
“Negotiating as a party has a bigger stake than negotiating as a person or individual and we shall be seeing different parties trying to work under the umbrella of DP Ruto,” said Mr Ali.
Deciding factor
He added, “For years, Mombasa has been the deciding factor of the politics for Coast region. So even with DP Ruto’s stake in the region, we believe his point man, and spokesperson for Coast will come from Mombasa.”
“This is because our other persons are gunning for top positions, where Ms Jumwa will be seeking the Kilifi gubernatorial seat, while in Kwale, Mwashetani also wants the governor seat leaving a person from Mombasa with higher chances of being appointed the spokesperson,” he added.
