A meeting held by Jubilee’s National Management Committee (NMC) with the agenda to provide a way forward in the party’s messy divorce with the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) failed to come up with a consensus.
NMC members met on Monday, May 3 in Nairobi to outline how they would proceed with the plan to tame UDA whose affiliated politicians were accused of sabotage and fighting the main party.
Jubilee’s Secretary-General Raphael Tuju admitted that they are facing legal hurdles in severing ties with the Deputy President William Ruto linked party. NMC failed to agree on how they would revoke the coalition agreement, two weeks after Tuju wrote to the Registrar of Political Parties on the dissolution of UDA.
“Yes, we met as NMC members but I am not in a position to deliberate on what we discussed.
“We are still having another meeting on Tuesday, May 4, and then we shall give a brief,” Tuju told Nation.
Insiders disclosed that Jubilee sought the guidance of its lawyers to chart the way forward in the row and to also avoid litigation in case UDA narrows down on any loophole within the party’s constitution.
Tuju while announcing plans to part ways with UDA, formerly known as Party of Development and Reforms (PDR), said that “We have found ourselves as strange bedfellows especially with the UDA use of their identity as ‘hustlers’ which has a negative dictionary meaning and connotation. This is also at the complete variance of our motto Tuko Pamoja.”
UDA affiliated politicians, however, cautioned that they were ready to prolong the row and would not leave Jubilee as easy as Tuju anticipated.
“Let them not try to imagine that we are fools when we are investing in UDA. We will even be better off as UDA without any Jubilee association,” Ruto’s allies warned. On April 15, the DP stated that he and his allies would opt for UDA in the event that Jubilee locks them out of contesting in the 2022 elections under the party’s banner.
Ruto accused Jubilee power brokers of frustrating his presidency bid and assuming his roles in government.
“UDA and Jubilee are one. We have a coalition agreement and we have been working together. If they break Jubilee, trying to make it a tribal party, we will build UDA as the national party we had hoped Jubilee will be,” he disclosed his plans in an interview on Citizen TV.
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