NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 19 – The United Republican Party (URP) has moved to seal fresh cracks that had forced some members threaten to return to the United Democratic Movement (UDM).
Differences over leadership between Rift Valley legislators Charles Keter (Belgut) and Isaac Ruto (Chepalungu) had threatened to split the newly formed party.
The truce came after the party’s National Executive Council and Parliamentary Group held a joint meeting on Wednesday evening.
Briefing the media on Thursday morning, Dujis MP Aden Duale said the party will now begin URP’s popularisation campaigns kicking off with rallies in Machakos and Makueni.
Keter is said to have walked out of a meeting chaired by William Ruto at the party headquarters last week after an exchange of words with the Chepalungu MP and a section of interim national officials over the matter.
“Isaac and I are friends. We are related; he is from Bomet and I am from Kericho, we don’t compete for anything; anything he is looking for in Kericho cannot affect me in and vice versa,” he said after the reconciliation meeting on Thursday.
Isaac Ruto on his part said: “There has never been any issue between me and Keter.”
MP Ekwe Ethuro said that NEC/PG meeting also resolved that Interim National Chairman Francis Ole Kaparo should quit his post as Chairman of the National Environment Management Authority to comply with requirements of the Political Parties’ Act which bars State officers from holding party posts.
The Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u has already said that the law is “clear on who can or cannot hold a party position”.
Article 12(1) of the Political Parties Act says a public officer is not eligible to be a founding member of a political party, hold office or engage in activities that may compromise or be seen to compromise the political neutrality of that person’s office.
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