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Friday, February 8, 2008

You betrayed us: Now Maanzo, Ojiambo sue Kalonzo over nominations

The traitor-in-chief has been found red-handed. Kalonzo Musyoka's running-mate and Kenya's first ever female Veep in waiting, Prof Julia Ojiambo has rocked the delicate Kibaki-Kalonzo banditry by suing the party for renegging on its earlier promise to nominate her. ODM Kenya chairman Daniel Maanzo and Julia Ojiambo have moved to court to sue vice president Kalonzo Musyoka, two nominated MPs and ECK for failure to nominate them to the 10th parliament. ODM-Kenya nominated Mr Mohammed Affey from North Eastern and Ms Shakira Omar from Coast.

They claim the move by Kalonzo in allocating the two slots to Shakila Abdalla and Mohamed Abdi Afayei is contrary to the constitution of the party. The two want the high court to stop ECK from forwarding the names of the two nominees to the president for gazettement.

They also claim that the party had nominated them only to shortchange them by nominating other people. They added that only the party's NEC had the mandate to nominate individuals and not the party leader. The two also argue that Kalonzo had turned them down even after promising to nominate them in public.

It will be remembered that Kalonzo Musyoka had promised his nadit chairman Dan Maanzo that he was the first nominated MP in the tenth parliament after Kalonzo handed the Kibwezi seat to former PC Kiilu. It was never to be. Maanzo learnt too late that the traitor-in-chief could not be trusted. Now it is Julia's turn to tell us the deal that was sealed to hand over LPK to Kalonzo and enable him escape with odm-k with which he entered into a bandit regime with Kibaki.

This new twist comes as a complete embarassment to Kalonzo who is abroad for prayers. Earlier today Kalonzo met US Senators Feingold and Peyne. While meeting with them, Kalonzo who is in a bandit power arrangement with Kibaki revealed his fears for the success of the mediation efforts by Annan whose efforts "must never fail". When he met New Jersey Congressman, Mr Donald Peyne, who has also sponsored another resolution on Kenya in the Congress, Kalonzo argued that proposals for power sharing were reasonable, but such arrangements could reverse democratic gains made over the years and run contrary to the Constitution, which declares that Kenya is a multi-party democracy. Kenyans will find these claims to be the signs of a panicking looser who cannot stand the ascendancy of the peoples' president Raila Odinga to his rightful place.