Raila moves to quell ODM storm, chairs meeting to end internal rift over Ruto alliance

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Tuesday swiftly moved to calm a brewing storm in his Orange Democratic Movement Party by chairing a National Executive Council meeting.

Raila's move was to quell public and internal disagreement among top party officials over a stance taken by Secretary General Edwin Sifuna on their cooperation with President William Ruto's United Democratic Alliance Party.

After almost a full day meeting with officials of his outfit, Raila emerged to lead them in a brief but tense press conference read by Sifuna.

In the address, the party announced plans to immediately review the state of the nation, current developments in the party and, in particular, their agreement with Ruto's outfit, and support for a broad-based arrangement.

'The party supports the position of Party Leader Raila Odinga to work with the Kenya Kwanza administration to stabilise the country and create an enabling environment for Kenyans to address their concerns through democratic and constitutional means," announced Sifuna.

He went ahead to announce that in order to expedite the implementation of the 10-point agenda of their agreement, the Orange Party will constitute a technical team to work with UDA counterparts as part of the political infrastructure to assist with the implementation of the agreement.

"The committee identified the absence of such a technical committee, which is contained in the MOU, as the missing link in the implementation of the document," said Sifuna.

According to the seemingly besieged Sifuna, who has been under attack from Raila and Ruto's foremost loyalists, of great concern is the full implementation of the NADCO report, promotion and protection of the livelihoods of young people, the right to peaceful assembly and protests, the rule of law and constitutionalism, corruption and wastage of public resources.

Sifuna acknowledged openly the internal strife in the party, noting that their meeting had differences following conflicting opinions the members had on their cooperation and backing of Ruto's reelection.

Earlier on, sources who spoke to The Eastleigh Voice intimated that some top officials demanded that Sifunas be hounded out for constantly faulting to back the party's agreement and support for Ruto.

"While the members arrived here with different viewpoints on many issues within the party and the country, the committee brokered an unbreakable unity of purpose in the party and a single-minded focus on ensuring that ODM continues to be a loyal servant of the people and the country, acting in the best interest of its supporters and the nation and committed to the agenda of national transformation and stability," Sifuna vowed.

While the meeting's main agenda was unity of purpose, Raila's party also waded into the matter of late disbursement of funds to the devolved units.

"While the party acknowledges the allocation of Sh415 billion to counties as an improvement on the previous disbursement, we will continue pushing for the raising of the allocation to a minimum of Sh450 billion or more," read Sifuna.

It also came out to demand the implementation of the unbundling of devolved functions and requisite and constitutionally sanctioned resources to the counties.

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