CORD captain Raila Odinga has revealed the deal struck with President Uhuru Kenyatta over IEBC talks at the Tuesday State House luncheon. Raila says during their four-man lunch-hour meeting, they agreed to form a team to midwife a deal on the stalemate over the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, even though it has emerged the agreement was not conclusive.
One of the agreements between Raila and President Uhuru was the need to disband the electoral body and establish a new one. They also agreed to do this through a joint team of five members each from CORD and Jubilee. State House has dismissed such a deal was reached. Even then, CORD has already named five people to the supposed 10-member mediation team.
“I can swear by the Bible that we have done what we agreed with our competitors and ready for negotiations outside Parliament,” Raila is quoted by the Standard as saying yesterday.
The Opposition has also given the Jubilee administration until Sunday to forward a list of their negotiators failure to which Monday protests will resume. CORD has named senators James Orengo (Siaya), Johnstone Muthama (Machakos), and MPs Eseli Simiyu (Tongaren), Mishi Mboko (Mombasa) and Abdikadir Aden (Balambala) to the mediation team. It has also named lawyer Paul Mwangi and Grace Katasi as joint secretaries.
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But immediately after the statement was released, Mr Aden pulled out of the team, citing “personal reasons”. “Hi, just wanted to inform you that I have asked to be left out of the CORD negotiation team for personal reasons,” said a short text message that the Balambala MP circulated to media houses.
Raila said he was shocked that Deputy President William Ruto denounced the talks outside Parliament, saying they will only honour legitimised discussions that follow the rule of law.
He wondered why Ruto and State House were trying to distance the government from the bi-partisan talks held at State House. Raila said he had reminded Ruto of how he successfully helped to broker peace in the Serena talks during the 2007 post-election violence.
CORD said they will be forced to go back to the streets on Monday if Jubilee does not name its team to mediate by Sunday.
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Senate Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula told the Senate that the State House talks, which he attended, centred around getting a team to talk outside Parliament, only that it was “inconclusive”.
“After the luncheon, my brother Raila and I met with the President and his deputy. On the table was the issue of how we can engage as the leadership of the country to address issues that are affecting the country including IEBC,” said Wetangula.
He added: “We had good but inconclusive discussions to the extent that we agreed to meet and discuss further before we reach a level where we can put up teams possibly to look at the issues within the Constitution and other administrative structures that portend bottlenecks and hindrances to having a peaceful, cohesive country that can go to elections without disputes and many other things that may not be part of elections.”
