The battle for Jubilee Party leadership at Nairobi County Assembly is now headed to the party’s top leadership for resolution, as neither of the warring factions is willing to back down.
This comes after reinstated Majority Leader Abdi Guyo said that they will now take the matter to the party’s Secretariat for determination.
LEADERSHIP
The move comes after Speaker Beatrice Elachi once again failed to communicate the change of leadership of the majority side during assembly’s sitting on Tuesday.
The Speaker insisted that she will need to review a May 28, 2020 letter by Secretary General Raphael Tuju communicating the changes before taking the next step.
She maintained that the current leadership will remain in office until such a time that she is satisfied that the due process was followed even though she confirmed receiving the letter from the Jubilee Party affirming the change in leadership.
However, giving her ruling at the end of the plenary sitting on Tuesday, Elachi said that the interim leadership will remain until a time Jubilee Party will review the issue with the party leader.
“Jubilee party has to sit down with the party leader to deal with this matter. Before that, this House remains with the same leadership and I will write to Jubilee and we shall deal with that matter next week,” Elachi ruled.
The ruling party had made changes to its leadership at the assembly on April 16, 2020 replacing an interim party leadership who had taken charge in November 12, 2019 after an acrimonious fallout following the return of Speaker Elachi to office in October.
REINSTATED
However, Ms Elachi insisted that she will only communicate the new leadership after getting a formal communication from the secretary general addressed to her office.
In the changes, Mr Guyo was reinstated as the Majority Leader taking over from Dandora Area 3 MCA Charles Thuo, who had been holding the position since November last year.
Mihang’o Ward MCA Paul Kados was appointed the new majority whip replacing nominated MCA June Ndegwa. Mr Guyo will now be deputised by Dandora Area 1 MCA Peter Wanyoike while Mr Kados will be deputised by South B MCA Waithera Chege.
The changes have, however, been contested by the interim leadership led by Mr Thuo and Ms Ndegwa saying that they were effected without proper consultation.
But the new leadership led by Mr Guyo have said that they will now raise the matter with Jubilee’s top leadership led by party leader Uhuru Kenyatta for a final determination.
COMMUNICATION
“We will follow this matter with the party leader and party Secretariat and we are sure that within the course of the week the matter will be solved,” said Mr Guyo.
“The speaker is also a member of Jubilee and we are the ones who elected her into the position. We will not resort to chaos as we have party mechanisms to deal with such matters,” he added.
On his part, Mr Kados expressed his astonishment at the speaker’s refusal to communicate the changes which he said contravenes the Constitution, the County Governments Act and the Standing Orders of the Nairobi County Assembly.
“We were shocked to see Speaker Elachi not adhering to the law pushing us to engage in chaos but we could not do that as we respect the law,” said the Mihang’o Ward MCA.
“She has a communication from the party on the changes on majority leadership changes but to our surprise, she said that unless our party leader communicates to her she does not recognise any other leadership.”
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