ODM party leader Raila Odinga with party Chairman John Mbadi (L) and party Secretary General Edwin Sifuna during the ODM National Governing Council meeting held in Nairobi on March 1, 2019.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga’s disbandment of the ODM National Elections Board (NEB) is part of an elaborate plan to address the ever-sensitive issue of party primaries ahead of the 2027 General Election.
The “Sunday Nation” has learnt of the backroom reasons that led to the disbandment of the board, which insiders said was becoming a “monster” to aspirants and party officials.
According to sources, the board had become too big and would at times make unilateral decisions without consultation with important party organs.
There were also concerns that people linked to the elections team were not only facing claims of extorting aspirants but also engineered nominations of underserving persons.
“The board largely messed up the party nominations in the last elections. They chose to work with one powerful person and everything went wrong, giving the party a bad reputation among its supporters,” said a source within the party.
In July last year, Mr Odinga chaired a stormy Central Management Committee to discuss the performance of the party in the previous general elections with party officials raising questions about the board.
During the meeting, it emerged that some gadgets that the party deployed to conduct its primaries did not have security safeguards to prevent rigging.
In the grand plan, to fix the mess, the party has now devolved to grassroots party elections under the supervision of two coordinators at the national level.
However, this time, the national coordinating team will not have unilateral powers to make the final decision on the nominations as has been previously.
In the new plan, any decision of the board will have to be ratified by the Central Management Committee before implementation.
A statement released by ODM after the meeting held on January 10, this year said the coordinating committee shall report directly to the Central Management Committee.
“There shall then be a Coordinating Committee of three persons at the national level reporting directly to the party’s central committee. This is geared towards improving efficiency, promoting greater credibility and empowering the grassroots to play a more central role in the spirit of devolution which the Party holds dear,” reads the statement.
The Central Management Committee is composed of the party leader, deputy party leader, chairman, secretary-general, executive director, treasurer, youth league leader, women league leader, representative of persons with disability and chairperson National Elections Board.
The party chairman, John Mbadi, told “Sunday Nation” that the polls will be conducted at the grassroots level, with the national board playing a coordination role but the final decision on who gets the ticket now lies with the Central Management Committee.
“It is no doubt that ODM is the biggest and most vibrant party in this country but our biggest challenge has been on how we conduct our nominations, if only we can fix that. We will be good to go,” Mr Mbadi said.
He added: “Nothing stops us from being the largest party in parliament because we have a structure, a clear manifesto, fight for people’s social rights and strive to do our elections despite the challenges. We are determined to fix the issue of nominations this time.”
ODM Treasurer Timothy Bosire said the changes are part of making the elections board more effective as the party prepares for the next elections.
“The changes will make the board more effective and also minimise nomination challenges previous boards have been facing,” Mr Bosire said.
Plagued by messy nominations over the years, the Raila Odinga-led party is now laying elaborate structures which it hopes will sort out the problem.
In the new grand plan, the Central committee will have the power to overrule the board if it feels the decision it has made does not reflect the reality on the ground.
“If there are a number of complaints from the ground about nominations, we will investigate the matter and where we are convinced that there are grounds for doubt, order a repeat of the exercise,” said a member of the committee.
During its Central Management Committee meeting held last week, the party resolved to devolve party elections by having the exercise conducted at the county level under the supervision of elections coordinators.
Ms Emily Awita and Richard Tairo, who served in the now defunct NEB were retained and appointed to the new coordinating committee with Ms Awita proposed as the chairperson of the new team with Beatrice Askul being nominated as the third member.
