Raila refutes reports of Azimio fallout over NADCO report

 

The opposition leader Raila Odinga marked the end of the year festivities with a re-assurance message to Kenyans that their unity was still rock solid despite the political murmuring sparked by bipartisan talks.

Raila denounced flaring allegations that the bipartisan talks shouldered as the National Dialogue Committee Report (NADCO), had split the opposition.

"In a democracy, you can't deny people the right to speak their minds. They are at liberty to express their opinions at will. And that doesn't mean disagreement as some people may posit," Raila claimed.

The Azimio La Umoja Coalition Party Leader, vehemently denied any fallout in his camp over the NADCO report, saying the dissenting opinions were an expression of some of its members' reservations on the NADCO report.

"As far as we are concerned, we made breakthroughs in the talks save for some grey areas like the cost of living that proved hard to crack. But we will still push for it to be addressed," Raila said.

Most of the fundamental issues raised by the opposition with the representatives of the ruling elite in the talks were universally agreed upon.

But some members were not happy that the most striking of all, which informed the talks, that the cost of living wasn't rationalized.

"All others, there was the consensus reached and modalities to address them, save for the cost of living which the state mandarins said was incumbent upon them to use all its viable mechanism to tackle," Raila explained to the press in his end-year recap of the teething issues that threatened the coalition's unity or one accord.

Raila restated that the Azimio team in the bipartisan talks led by Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, had made significant progress in the talks.

Raila noted that they faired well in the diplomatic negotiations in particular on some of the key issues they had raised bordering on electoral reforms which has been the bane of post-election protests each general election cycle.

Raila on dissenting Azimio members

He hoped that the issues would be sufficiently addressed by both sides of the political parties divide led by Musyoka and Majority leader in the National Assembly Kimani Ichungwa acting on delegated authority from President William Ruto.

“Those other members of Azimio who are pouring cold water on the NADCO report are jostling because we all agreed to prioritize the cost of living. But it was unfortunate that the state representatives did not agree to strike a common ground with us on bringing down the high cost of living saying it was the prerogative of the ruling regime to do and promised to act on it themselves,” Raila reminisced.

“What they may not know is that there was general and unanimous consensus or agreement on fundamental issues that we had raised as Azimio in the talks,” Raila said.

The issues are, and not limited to electoral reforms, governance issues touching on high tax regimes and accountable exercise of power among others.

However, he observed that the only point of contention in the NADCO report was the rising cost of living, which the Ichungwa team insisted was squarely in the hands of the Kenya Kwanza administration.

“Our team said in the NADCO report that they disagreed with the Kenya Kwanza team on the cost of living because the Kenya Kwanza team said they would do it in their style at their own pace,” Raila noted.

The opposition leader stated that the Azimio team chose to carry on with the negotiations despite the disagreement over the cost of living because of the advancements they had achieved on the other fundamental concerns they had tabled for talks.

Raila said the opposition in the new year 2024, will continue to press the government to reduce the cost of living and high taxation.

This included a forensic audit of the 2022 Presidential Elections, the reconstitution of the IEBC, and respect for multi-party democracy by coming up with laws to tame party hopping so that in the event some political leaders elected either in UDA or ODM switch allegiance to either side, then they can defect and seek a fresh mandate from the electorates.

Currently, in Nyanza, some ODM members have switched allegiance to UDA and are working closely with the ruling coalition.

They include Kisumu Senator Prof Tom Ojienda, Uriri MP Mark Nyamita, Rongo MP Paul Abour, Bondo MP Gedion Ochanda, Gem MP Elisha Odhiambo, Suba South MP Caroli Omondi and Ugenya MP David Ochieng of MDG.

The MPs have been giving ODM a headache by pulling parallel to their course with a series of political activities pro the ruling government.

Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua, was the first to urge Kenyans to reject the NADCO report terming it a fraud since it didn't address the striking issue in the heart of Kenyans that sparked street protests against the government in mid-April and May this year.

Former Defence Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa had also threatened not to sign the report because it didn't tackle the high cost of living and so was Jubilee leader Jeremiah Kioni, who claimed that the report only addressed what the Kenya Kwanza team brought forward and overlooked other key issues that the Azimio team proposed.

In the meantime, Raila called for opposition cohesiveness as they mark time to restart the quest for democratic consolidation of their support bases while they push for solutions to the identified administrative problems in Kenya through 'consocitional' democracy, to sort out the problematic winner takes it all conundrum.

They will also push for plebiscite democracy to approve or reject, some of the radical proposals contained in the Nadco report through a national referendum.

ByKepher Otieno