Deputy President William Ruto-linked United Democratic Alliance (UDA) will today begin nationwide meetings with 2022 General Election hopefuls in a party marketing drive.
The party has divided the country into six clusters and will meet the aspirants in phases as it seeks to solidify the rebranded outfit that Dr Ruto allies want him to use in his State House run next year.
The party will start its consultative meetings with aspirants drawn from parts of Mount Kenya, Eastern and Nairobi region, who will meet in Nairobi this morning.
The party's secretary-general Veronica Maina yesterday said UDA will use the forums to collect views from its 2022 election contenders on how the party should managed ahead of the next year's polls.
"We are a new party, so we want them to understand our Constitution, understanding what is contained in our political philosophy and we also want to gather the views of the party and how they want it run," said Ms Maina.
Aspirants from Western will converge in Vihiga on May 24, North Rift (Eldoret) on May 25, South Rift (Nakuru) on May 27, Mount Kenya East (Meru) on May 31 and the last forum in Mombasa on June 3 for the Coastal region.
A draft UDA constitution seen by the Nation proposes to have three deputy party leaders, three deputy chairpersons, three deputy secretaries-general, three deputy national treasurers, and three deputies, national organising secretaries.
The three proposed deputy positions shall be in charge of operations, programmes and strategy, with each of the office holders given powers to promote one of the three roles and reporting to the substantive office holder.
"NEC shall designate any of the deputies to act and undertake the duties and roles of the respective substantive office holders or any other official to act where circumstances warrant or where in the opinion of NEC the office holder is unable to perform the duties of that office," the draft UDA constitution states.
Yesterday, Ms Maina said the move is aimed at taking the party to the people as it seeks to solidify the rebranded outfit.
"We are more interested in decision making process from bottom-up approach unlike the up-down model where you have the leadership is telling the people what needs to be done. Aspirants will have a platform to say what they think about the party and its future we will capture those ideas and ideals," Ms Maina said.
The DP for the first time last month disclosed that he is ready to use UDA in the race for State House if the 'dictatorship' in the Jubilee Party is not dealt with.
"If it gets to a point where they do not want us to be there in Jubilee, then we must have a different plan. You cannot wait to hit a wall. Going forward, if there is no agreement, then we will plan ourselves with UDA. We have built UDA in partnership with Jubilee. It is not us starting afresh. We are just going on with what we already have," Dr Ruto said in a recent interview.
DP’s allies who have continued to champion ideals of UDA are faced with expulsion from the ruling Jubilee Party which sponsored them to Parliament.
According to Jubilee vice-chairman David Murathe, the party will not relent on punishing its members who have refused to champion the ideologies of the party and replace them with individuals who are ready to work with the party.
Mr Isaac Mwaura lost his seat in the Senate after the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal (PPDT) upheld his ejection from Jubilee.
The party has picked former Samburu senator Sammy Leshore to replace him as a member of the Senate representing persons with disabilities.
The ruling party has also expelled its former secretary general Ms Maina, who is currently the secretary-general of UDA.
However, Ms Maina dismissed reports that she had been expelled by Jubilee saying she resigned from the party in December last year.
“For purposes of record, I voluntarily resigned from Jubilee and took up the position of secretary-general UDA,” she said.
Jubilee says after terminating the coalition pact with UDA, the party is not interested in expelling the rebel MPs to spare the country mass by-elections less than 16 months to the next General Election.
“As far as our relationship with UDA is concerned, registrar of political parties wrote to them that we have terminated the coalition deal and it might result into by-elections but we do not want to subject Kenyans into this. We want to part ways nicely, let them go grow their party and leave our party as we revamp ours through new partnerships but not with UDA,” Mr Murathe told a local TV.
In the by-elections the party has participated in, UDA lost in Kabuchai, Matungu, Bonchari but bagged ward seats of London (Nakuru) and Rurii (Nyandarua).
