Focus on 2022 election, Musalia Mudavadi tells Nasa
What you need to know:
Mr Mudavadi says Nasa risks losing sight of the ball.
“My appeal is singular and clear: Let us look forward. Let us start figuring out whether our strategy was wrong or right. And if it was wrong, let us correct it,” he said.
The ANC leader, in what is likely to further aggravate the disagreements in Nasa, hinted at a push between those that wanted things done just to be popular, and “lacked courage to say that that is not the right thing.”
National Super Alliance principal Musalia Mudavadi now wants the coalition to focus on how to win the 2022 elections, rather than pushing for a fresh presidential contest.
The comments by the Amani National Congress (ANC) leader are different from Nasa leader Raila Odinga’s, who wants a fresh contest by August 2018.
BUDGET
In an interview with NTV, the former deputy prime minister said there was no legal and financial frameworks to enable the country conduct a fresh election— the third in Kenya’s protracted poll period that featured an annulled poll and a repeat one boycotted by Nasa.
Two weeks ago, Mr Odinga told BBC that the coalition would push for a fresh poll days after he took ‘oath’ as the people’s president in a ceremony that was skipped by Mr Mudavadi, and co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula.
“I was asking our MPs, have you made provision for a fresh presidential election? They said no. Issues like this, in my view, need to be financed 90 per cent by the citizens themselves, and that can only be through the budget,” Mr Mudavadi said.
Mr Mudavadi, however, maintained that it is possible for Nasa to push for transparency in the manner in which elections are conducted to ensure every vote counts before 2022.
Mr Odinga boycotted the October 26 repeat presidential election after the Supreme Court ruled in his favour to annul the August 8 election citing irregularities and illegalities.
In protest of what he said was a sham repeat poll, Mr Odinga marshalled his supporters to ‘swear’ him in on January 30, as well as boycott some select products, and lead a resistance movement against the government.
NASA
Now, Mr Mudavadi says Nasa risks losing sight of the ball.
“My appeal is singular and clear: Let us look forward. Let us start figuring out whether our strategy was wrong or right. And if it was wrong, let us correct it,” he said.
The ANC leader, in what is likely to further aggravate the disagreements in Nasa, hinted at a push between those that wanted things done just to be popular, and “lacked courage to say that that is not the right thing.”
“The people who made the people’s assembly look like the swearing-in was an end to itself are the ones who have been misleading Kenyans, because that was not the end to itself. It is these issues that we have to deal with,” he said.
Nasa has singled out electoral justice, an expanded executive, judiciary and police reforms, and strengthening of devolution as key issues that they want the people’s convention to address.
The coalition wants a national referendum in which Kenyans, backed by the people’s convention, will vote on the issues.
