Mudavadi offers to lead mediation on proposed national dialogue

VIHIGA COUNTY: Former Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi has offered to spearhead the national dialogue mediation.

Noting that the exercise requires an honest broker, the Amani Coalition leader said the positions taken by Jubilee and CORD were too polarising because either side has taken extreme positions that cannot lead to a productive debate.

“You cannot have a meaningful and genuine debate on national dialogue when one side gives conditions and makes threats, and the other resorts to chest thumping. I am ready and willing to stand between them and offer direction,” he said.

The UDF leader said the issues at hand are monumental and that insecurity, unemployment, high cost of living and national cohesion require a meeting of minds.

“As the Amani Coalition candidate, I campaigned on the platform of peace, national reconciliation and cohesion. I cannot sit back and watch the country tear apart. I will step in as an honest broker to mediate a genuine and honest national dialogue,” Mudavadi said while addressing mourners at the burial of Sabatia women leader Tabitha Lukalo in Vihiga County..

Mudavadi said he was ready to work out the agenda, mandate, management and participation modalities of the dialogue.

“I learnt a lot from the 2007 post election mediation under Kofi Annan and it takes sober leaders to reason together. Let’s not prepare to shed blood again,” he cautioned.

Meanwhile, two Jubilee affiliated MPs have called on the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) to drop its plans for nationwide rallies and instead approach their concerns through dialogue.

Kapenguria MP Samuel Moroto (Kanu) and his Bureti counterpart Leornard Sang (URP) called for sobriety through structured dialogue rather than protest rallies.

Moroto said the opposition has the right to keep the government in check, but warned that there were structures to use in doing so.

On his part, Sang asked the opposition not to put the country on a campaign mode. “We do not refuse dialogue as mooted by CORD members, but we do not want the rallies since they will only put the country into an electioneering mood,” he said.

The two MPs were speaking Saturday at Pcholpogh Primary School in Sook, West Pokot County.

Elsewhere, Thika MP Alice Ng’ang’a has issued an ultimatum to CORD leader Raila to substantiate his recent remarks where he warned the President of a storm if he ignores talks with the opposition.

Ng’ang’a has now given the former Prime Minister seven days to tell the nation of what he meant by a “political storm”, saying that was tantamount to issuing threats and incitement, which she said the government will not take lying down.

“I urge Raila to tell the country what he knows and what they are planning to do if the dialogue they are seeking for doesn’t happen. If the Opposition has an issue that they want to dialogue on let them use the constitutionally enabled structures,” the MP said

The MP said the Jubilee lawmakers would not sit and watch as the Opposition goes around the country peddling lies and making remarks that border on incitement and malice.

Raila spoke in Eastleigh on Thursday and cautioned Uhuru of a political storm should the Jubilee Government continue to maintain a hardline stance against the national dialogue his team is seeking.

Additional reporting by Wilberforce Netya and Kamau Maichuhie.