ODM Kakamega County leaders warn CORD affiliate parties to steer off from Raila Odinga’s upcoming tour set for August 22, in western.
The Orange party has also retreated on its earlier sentiments of having a joint nomination under CORD to strengthen the coalition and instead said that all the three Coalition partners of Wiper and FORD -Kenya go on their own.
The party’s Kakamega county secretary Andrew Toboso yesterday directed that the upcoming Raila tour is an ODM affair which should be left to party loyalists alone.
He raised fears that non-ODM leaders within the CORD coalition were keen and had shown interest to ride on the tour to campaign for their opposite parties in the region,
“In Kakamega county’s Butere, Kwisero, Lurambi, Navakholo and Lugari constituencies in a purely ODM in house affair. We shall then tour Bungoma and Trans Nzoia counties to popularize our party.
Then, let Ford Kenya for example concentrate in pushing Jubilee out of Bungoma rather than crushing in the ODM calendar,” said Toboso in Butere at Ebululwe primary where he opened administration blocks for the primary and that of Emunuko primary.
The Butere legislature further stated that the party would go it all alone to have its own primaries that will present suitable candidates to face off with opponents in 2017 elections and not as a coalition,
“We know there are fishy elements who want to infiltrate in the ranks on the coalition’s name. We want tried, tested and trusted leaders that’s why we will go it alone in the nominations as a party (ODM) and not under the coalition,” he said.
This comes just a week after the orange party’s deputy leader Wycliffe Oparanya suggested in a funeral at Lugari that the better way for CORD to face and beat Jubilee was through having a joint nomination.
Senator Boni Khalwale replied that he was ready to face off Oparanya in the Kakamega gubernatorial seat joint nomination and win, “As long as it is free and fair.”
The Raila’s second tour to western will come just a month after he winded another which was occasioned by mixed fortunes.
He toured Vihiga, Busia and Kakamega County to counter dissatisfying trends in his party on a region that had stood with him every time he was on the presidential ballot.
