Uhuru to face critics in Kanu

By Gakuu Mathenge

Deputy Prime Minister and Kanu  Chairman, Uhuru Kenyatta, has finally given an overdue notice of meeting of a joint National Executive Council and the Parliamentary Group, the highest decision making organ of the former ruling party.

A notice signed by the Finance minister and dated December 7, and copied to all NEC and PG

members, invites them to a three-day ‘Working Retreat of the National Executive Council and Kanu PG’ from Friday to Sunday this week, at the Great Rift Valley Lodge, Naivasha.

"By a copy of this notice, Kanu and PNU/Kanu Members of Parliament who are not members of the National Executive Council are invited to attend... the agenda of the meeting will be circulated at the meeting," a copy of the notice obtained by The Standard On Sunday says, in part.

Sources say Kanu is set to re-brand, re-launch, and recruit in preparation for transitional General Election, due next year.

"Some officials and I are in Washington shopping for a public relations firm to help Kanu rebrand. We plan to rebrand and re-launch locally and internationally," said organising secretary, JB Muturi, on the telephone.

The move is likely to surprise many especially those who expected Uhuru to dump Kanu.

The former ruling party has been split, with one fraction leaning towards Uhuru, and the other towards vice-chairman and former Baringo MP, Gideon Moi.

The meeting will provide a forum for his critics in the party who have often accused him of neglecting the party and promoting PNU Alliance at the expense of their party.

Kanu Secretary General, Nick Salat, and Coast NEC Rep, Abdurrahman Bafadhil, fired the first shot on what to expect at the Kanu caucus this week:

 "Uhuru must explain where he has been all this time, for four years, his association with PNU Alliance and the G7 group, which he joined without approval of the NEC. He must explain, too, why Kanu has not taken part in by-elections since 2007, while he was busy promoting PNU candidates."

"He may say Kanu was a member of the PNU coalition, but so was ODM-Kenya, Ford-Kenya, and Narc-Kenya which have always fielded candidates. Finally, he must take responsibility for his lethargy that has allowed unchallenged invasion and infiltration of former Kanu strongholds by other parties," Salat said.

But Bafadhil, who has filed a case in court to force Uhuru to step down as Kanu chairman on account of being a State officer said,  "As State Officer in the definition of leadership in Chapter Six of the new Constitution, Uhuru has no mandate to convene a NEC meeting. He should follow the good example set by his former vice-chair, Marsden Madoka, who resigned upon being appointed Kenya Revenue Authority Board chairman," Bafadhil said.

Revamped

The 2005 Kanu constitution heaped enormous powers in the office of the chairman, including powers to convene NEC meetings, and Salat says these were long overdue for review.

Recently, and in an apparent bid to show their impatience with the manner he was running Kanu, Salat, Bafadhil, and Ahmed Abdalla obtained a court injunction to stop a recruitment drive Uhuru and Muturi launched.

The court order by Justice John Mwera, restrained Uhuru and Muturi from directly or indirectly initiating the recruitment, unless they complied with the Constitution and the Political Parties Act.

Muturi had issued a notice announcing that the membership recruitment drive initially set to commence in July 1.

Another petition filed in a Mombasa court by Bafadhil and others, seeks to determine whether Uhuru, by being chairman of Kanu, was breaking the law as a State officer.

On Saturday, Bafadhil said in a telephone interview, "Uhuru has sent three emissaries to plead with me to withdraw the case, but I am sitting tight. I won’t withdraw it."

The decision by Uhuru to call the meeting is bound to occupy public debate for some time; some having dismissed Kanu after it was routed out of its 40-year hold on power in the 2002 General Election.

But like Kanu, the Kenyatta brand is an old, and enduring ‘brand’ that has been around the Kenyan psyche since 1929, when a young city council meter reader, Jomo Kenyatta, was hoisted on the national and global stage by Kikuyu Central Association as an emissary to present the Kikuyu land grievances to Her Majesty the Queen of England.

Kenyatta later led Kenya to independence, with Kanu commanding the parliamentary majority and becoming the first Prime Minister.

Now the scion of the most prominent of Kenya’s political families seems to have opted to stick with the Independence party.

The Standard