All eyes on Uhuru as rival Jubilee factions flex muscle ahead of NDC

Never before has the country witnessed such a bitter battle for a political party by rival factions supported by a former president and his successor who has openly welcomed the rebelling group into his Kenya Kwanza Alliance.

Trouble in the party began in February, when President William Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua hosted 30 Jubilee MPs at State House who pledged their allegiance to the ruling Kenya Kwanza despite being in the opposition. Jubilee is an affiliate party of Azimio la Umoja One Kenya.

Senior leaders in President William Ruto's government had since 2018 also battled President Kenyatta and his Jubilee party after the latter sidelined them and chose to support Azimio leader Raila's Odinga's presidential bid in 2022.

President Kenyatta's supporters have made it clear that the fight for Jubilee is not between Secretary-General Jeremiah Kioni and Eala MP Kanini Kega, who was given the latter's position by the National Executive Meeting (NEC) meeting held in Nakuru three months ago.

Without naming the person behind the coup Jubilee Vice Chairman David Murathe said the fight is sponsored by: "The one who has vested interest because we chased him away from Jubilee and now he wants to exert his revenge because he is in power."

Waning popularity

Political analyst, Prof Gitile Naituli of Multi Media University however thinks President Kenyatta's popularity that waned before the last elections has received a major boost in Mt Kenya following the onslaught against him and the Jubilee party.

He argues that the powers that be are keen on killing Jubilee because it is the only parliamentary party that can bounce back and is also led by senior politicians from the central Kenya region.

Killing the party will therefore also diminish its leadership and give UDA a free hand in the vote-rich area that normally plays a big role in deciding who leads the country.

"Those in power think the clever thing is to finish that party but the more they target it, the more people are going to feel that it is theirs and that they therefore need to protect it," says Prof Naituli.

What is at stake is also bigger than the fighting raging in the Jubilee party because it revolves around the war of who should be the regional kingpin, a position that President Kenyatta will continue holding as long as he is the party leader.

Some leaders who were close to the former president among them former Nyeri Town MP Wambugu Ngunjiri have however asked him to take a back seat and allow fresh leadership to take over the party.

"Uhuru needs to accept that he does not have a vision for the party beyond where we are. He did his part and did a good job. He is just scared that the next leadership might go and work with Kenya Kwanza and that is a personal problem," said Ngunjiri.

But media and political communications expert Hesborn Owilla contends that it is becoming increasingly clear that former President Kenyatta is fighting against powerful forces and it is any ones guess who they are.

He believes that the fight is not about factions taking over the party because of its resources but about issues that touch at the heart and soul of multi-party democracy.

Owilla cautions that if the powerful forces that are behind the push succeed, they will go for other parties once Jubilee is exterminated to ensure that they are in total control of political power through one monolithic party.

He further argues that the powerful forces also want to ensure that there is no other channel for political determination in Mt Kenya other than Ruto's UDA.

"A dead Jubilee means there is only one big party that is UDA which can do anything it wants but leaders from that region should know that going forward they will not have an alternative vehicle," he says.

Owilla says the tragedy is that if UDA gets its way, anyone with a dissenting voice will be dealt with or sidelined and come 2027 General Election they will have nowhere to go.

The thorny issue of party hoping has been raised by the opposition and is supposed to be discussed by the bipartisan talks committee to ensure political hygiene in the country.

Apart from the Jubilee MPs some ODM members in Azimio coalition party also jumped ship to President Ruto's Kenya Kwanza Alliance.

The ODM legislators who met the President and his deputy Gachagua at State House and pledged their support were Gideon Ochanda (Bondo), Elisha Odhiambo (Gem), Mark Nyamita (Uriri), Caroli Omondi (Suba South), Felix Odiwuor alias Jalang'o (Lang'ata), Paul Abuor (Rongo) and Kisumu Senator Prof Tom Ojienda.

The move by the rebel Azimio MPs has divided opinion, with some analysts arguing that they have a right to associate with the president while others say their decision was not in the interest of the people they represent or the party that sponsored them but personal gain and political deceit.

That is why Kenyans will be closely following how former President Kenyatta who seems to have lost some influence in the party navigates the Jubilee ship in the coming weeks.

He appears to be having an upper hand at the moment because the Political Party Disputes Tribunal resolved to maintain the status quo when the Sabina Chege and Kega led faction attempted to make some leadership changes.

The tribunal ruled that the rival parties had not exhausted the internal mechanisms of settling the dispute.

That is when the former president issued a notice for NDC, which Kega who is the acting Secretary General of the rival faction claimed he had cancelled.

Prof Naituli argues that it will be very difficult for the Kega faction to succeed because the Jubilee constitution mirrors that of South Africa's African National Congress and the Communist Party of China which gives the party leader and Secretary General immense powers.

"As long as the constitution is followed because only those two can call either NEC or NDC and the court makes independent decisions if the matter goes there, they will not manage to take over the party," he says.

Should that be the case, the NDC will take place as scheduled on May 22 at the Bomas of Kenya to elect new officials and in the process seal the fate of the rival officials who also include deputy Secretary General and former Cherangany MP Joshua Kuttuny.

Undefined rules

Prof Naituli believes courts will be reluctant to interfere in the political arena because political parties work with very undefined rules and that is why the Judiciary allows members to make decisions and only comes in if they are unconstitutional.

"If Uhuru takes proper leadership of Jubilee, then Sabina and Kanini will be in a lot of trouble because one of the agendas will be filling the officials and then recalling them from their positions," says Naituli.

He however thinks former President Kenyatta badly needed the publicity and sympathy that he is getting and he should pray that the fighting continues because his ratings had gone low in Mt Kenya.

Embakasi West MP Mark Mwenje (Jubilee) has hailed Kenyatta for taking a bold leadership role that was lacking in the party and for calling the NDC and urged those who want to leave to do so and allow the party to thrive because its collapse will be a loss for democracy.

Owilla argues that entertaining interference by party officials and allowing them to call NEC meetings and to cancel NDC sends a wrong signal because other renegade MPs like those in ODM can do so and endanger multi-party politics.