Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Beatrice Elachi and Majority Leader Abdi Guyo can now breathe a sigh of relief after Jubilee Party brokered a truce between the warring factions at the city assembly.
Jubilee Party secretary general Raphael Tuju announced that following a meeting with the party’s MCAs on Wednesday, they had agreed for status quo to remain.
This in effect means that Elachi will continue serving as the assembly speaker and Mr Guyo as the majority leader, with the assembly sittings set to resume on October 29, 2019.
“We have had a constructive meeting with Jubilee Party Nairobi MCAs dealing with the challenges that precipitated the last week chaos. We have agreed that we are going to obey the rule of law,” said Mr Tuju while addressing the media at the party’s headquarters in Pangani, Nairobi.
On Elachi’s position as speaker, he stated that the rule of law must be respected as there is an existing court order reinstating her, stating that any more differences, if any, will be dealt with in accordance with the law.
The Jubilee secretary general, however, pointed out that the party will invite Elachi to meet all the MCAs to ventilating on the issues that precipitated her dramatic impeachment last year.
“We discussed the issue of Elachi and we agreed that even those of us with alternative views with respect to her position will allow the rule of law to prevail,” he said.
Tuju indicated that Guyo would remain the majority leader until such a time that the party will pronounce itself on the leadership of the ruling party at the county assembly.
“We will follow the constitution of the party and the rule of law so the status quo remains. We have been having a lot of consultations with members since Monday and we are gathering their opinions and doing a lot listening so that we can move forward,” said the former Rarieda MP.
Governor Mike Sonko last week wrote to the party requesting that Guyo be replaced with Mark Ndung’u (Maringo Hamza MCA), accusing the Matopeni MCA of undermining his administration by intimidation, interference and cajoling of staff.
But MCAs allied to Guyo had maintained that they would not recognize Elachi as their speaker opting to rally behind acting speaker Chege Mwaura.
While at the DCI headquarters on Monday, the majority leader appeared to offer an olive branch to both Elachi and Sonko but urged the former to change her management style and stop “encroaching on other people’s mandate”.
“I have no problem with her but she has to change her style of management. She should stick to her mandate as speaker and not encroach on other people’s mandate. I am not appointed majority leader but elected one and I am confident that 90 percent of Jubilee MCAs are still behind me.
“I do not have a problem with Sonko but he is just being misadvised by some of his friends,” added Guyo.
The truce will come as a relief for the county assembly which had degenerated into chaos leading to paralysis of normal services.
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