UDA: Reports on Ruto-Mudavadi power sharing deal speculative

The United Democratic Alliance (UDA) says reports on a power sharing deal between Deputy President William Ruto, ANC Party Leader Musalia Mudavadi and Ford-Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula are speculative.

The Standard had earlier obtained exclusive information that DP Ruto will run for presidency in the August 9 polls, supported by Musalia Mudavadi, who will bag the chief minister’s position should Ruto win the presidential election.

Sources, who spoke to The Saturday Standard, said Ruto and Mudavadi also agreed that the DP has the freedom to select his deputy.

The reported covenant also has it that Mudavadi’s ANC will field gubernatorial candidates in Nairobi, Kakamega and Vihiga, and that UDA or Ford-Kenya won’t produce governor candidates in those counties.

However, UDA will front a name for Nairobi Deputy Governor seat, and aspirants in the city’s Senate and Woman Representative contests. ANC and Ford-Kenya, which have a work-together deal with UDA, won’t field candidates in the two top city seats.

Ruto’s UDA would also produce the coalition’s sole candidate in the Trans Nzoia senatorial election.

Mudavadi’s ANC, on the other hand, will suggest names for the Finance and Devolution Cabinet Secretary positions in Ruto’s government.

ANC will also get one more ministry, and other government appointments, the same number as Ford-Kenya.

Moses Wetang’ula’s Ford-Kenya, as per the reported agreement, would be allocated two Cabinet Secretary positions in Ruto’s government.

Wetang’ula would also get a free pass for the Bungoma Senate seat nomination. Ford-Kenya would also pick gubernatorial candidates in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia counties. Neither UDA nor ANC, as the per the agreement, will be allowed to field candidates for governor in the two counties.

UDA now says the reported covenant details are “speculative and based on journalistic assumptions”.

“The details of the cooperation between UDA, ANC and Ford Kenya, and any other political party, if at all, will be formally unveiled by the principals at an appropriate time,” said the Party’s Secretary-General Veronica Maina in a statement dated Saturday, January 29.

Maina says the co-principals’ main goal is to economically empower Kenyans, and “not to share positions of power at the expense of what is important to the common mwananchi”.

The three parties entered a work-together pact on Sunday, January 23, when Mudavadi and Wetang’ula revealed that they were joining forces with Ruto’s UDA ahead of the August 9 General Election.

Ruto, in his address at the Bomas of Kenya last Sunday, said the three parties entered into a coalition, and therefore, their covenant details will be submitted to the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties, and subsequently made public.