Review pact on mini-polls, ODM told

By James Mbaka

The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) should consider reviewing the terms of reference among its coalition partners to avoid face-offs during by-elections, a senator has said.

Nominated ODM Senator Agnes Zani says lack of a concrete agreement on how the three coalition partners — ODM, Wiper and Ford-Kenya — should approach by-elections poses a threat to the coalition’s unity. The bone of contention has been whether or nor each party in the coalition should field a candidate.

Dr Zani says although the issue had come up, players in the marriage should face the reality and confront the hard-facts by relooking at the agreement afresh.

“This is a matter that needs to be solved amicably within coalition stakeholders and then a method devised on how the three main partner parties can approach mini-polls to avoid divisive internal competition,” she says.

Research unit

She proposes that the coalition establishes a research, evaluation and monitoring unit that can conduct independent audit of the strengths of each candidate before concluding on who gets the coalition’s support, based on ground support and viability.

“It has reached a situation where as a coalition, we need to invest heavily on research to be able to decide on popular candidates within coalition partners who would then be backed in case of a by-election,” she said.

The nominated senator also proposes that, alternatively, the coalition draws a pattern of agreement on how to face mini-polls on an alternating formula so that each of the partners is given a chance to field a candidate on a rotational basis.

Bonchari mini-polls

“The three parties can decide to support a candidate from one political party in the coalition and then in case of another by-election, support the other one too,” Dr Zani said.

 Her remarks comes after both ODM and Wiper nominated candidates for the Bonchari parliamentary by-election slated for June 23.

Wiper nominated former MP Charles Onyancha while ODM picked immediate former MP John Oroo for the mini-poll to face another former MP Zepedeo Opore of Jubilee.

But Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka has said the by-elections should not cause any hostilities as CORD is one big family that embraces democracy.