War is unfolding in the four-year-old President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party.
The ousted UDA Secretary General, Cleophas Malala, citing a plot to oust Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, is castigating the National Executive Council (NEC) for effecting his “un-procedural” removal at 5am without informing him.
On the other side are the NEC members led by chairperson and Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire and National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wa.
For now, the battle for the soul of the Wheelbarrow party is being fought on three major fronts; the online platforms where the soldiers are drafting well-written and researched articles against the other, vertabal as well as in courts.
Malala fueled the war by accusing his rivals of staging a coup to remove him after he rejected their overtures to allegedly initiate a process that would culminate in Gachagua’s impeachment.
“When their concerted effort, lobbying and coercion to set me against my Deputy Party Leader failed, I was effectively profiled and labelled an obstacle towards their evil plot and conspiracy to have Gachagua impeached,” he claimed.
Gachagua warned that the Kenya Kwanza administration faces full in-tray including quelling Gen Z protests, and Finance Bill row, and that bringing in UDA wrangles was only deteriorating the already precarious situation.
In an interview with Kikuyu vernacular stations last Sunday, the DP lamented that he was not consulted on the decision to remove Malala as UDA secretary general, claiming that he learnt of the ouster from his aides.
“Malala was kicked out at 5 am from the ruling party. I was not called to that meeting that decided to remove him from his seat. My aides were the ones informing me that the meeting was held at 5 am and the decision was made. This should not be happening because this is the ruling party,” he said.
But the NEC members have defended their move, maintaining that it was not the first time they were meeting without the knowledge of not only Gachagua but the President.
UDA MCAs Caucus Chairperson Kiruga Thuku and a member of the NEC maintained that the law allows the top party organ to call a meeting and then send a memorandum to the party leader and deputy party leader.
“We have met several times in the absence of the President and his deputy in the past…Someone lied to our deputy party leader that we met at 5 am. I want to say that we met between 7am and 7:30 am and unanimously made the changes regarding our Secretary General,” Kiruga said.
He told Sunday Standard on phone that Malala was removed on grounds of alleged irregular employment without the permission of the NEC, lack of respect to the NEC members and party officials and being used by outside forces to kill the party.
Mbarire said the ousted secretary general has been a nuisance in UDA and he had been working to wreak the party from within, claiming that meetings have been held in the presence of the President and his deputy to address cases involving Malala but no progress had been made.
“It reached to a point that we realised that he was only pushing his interests in the party and destroying the party from within. He refused to call for a meeting but our constitution gives NEC members powers to demand for a meeting from the chairperson and that is what informed me to summon for the meeting,” she said.
Desperate efforts
While addressing the claims that she and Ichung’wa were plotting Gachagua’s impeachment, Mbarire said she would not be a party to such plans.
“I can’t not be party to impeachment plans because such is conducted by MPs. Malala is introducing lies in his desperate efforts to seek sympathy from Kenyans so that he can be returned to the party to continue destroying it from where he left,” Mbarire added.
She denied the existence of the impeachment plot against Gachagua saying only the President could introduce such a motive and from where she sat, the President was against such a move.
Another tactic that had been deployed was drafting letters. Malala was the first to write a letter threatening to expose why he was removed from the party.
“I will be disclosing the other 17 issues against them in due course, including and not limited to documentary evidence of efforts by the two, with their accomplices, to defraud the party, as well as manufacturing minutes of non-existent party meetings, and forging the signatures of the deputy president and myself, in attempts to access the party’s bank accounts,” he wrote in the letter.
His letter was first responded to by Joe Khalende who poses as the party’s chairperson Founder Association.
He wrote, “In his warped statement and lopsided logic, Malala has exposed his conniving side by telling the world how he has been working overtime to sabotage the agenda of the party leader…”
Another letter from Hassan Omar responding to Malala accused him of ‘ranting and raving’ saying he (Malala) was not worthy of a response from the party, and is undeserving of much attention.
“Malala’s colourless stint as Secretary General was characterised by melodrama, toxicity, missteps, discord, ruin; a failed leadership in all aspects. The party therefore does not wish to be drawn into endless shenanigans recognising its status as the party of the President, the nation’s ruling party,” Omar wrote.
“Let the authors and sponsors of this script perform their poems and plays in other theatres of political deceit and sympathy seeking. The wild performances of these political novices cannot deter the will of the party’s rank and file to steer the party on its set course of progress and transformation as custodians of the people’s mandate,” he added.
While the push and pull continues, UDA is in the process of merging with Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi’s Amani National Congress party, where the two outfits will lose their identities and establish one name.
