NAIROBI, Kenya, May 20 – Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday launched The National Alliance (TNA) party which he will use to vie for presidency in the forthcoming general elections.
Under the slogan ‘I believe’, the Deputy Prime Minister promised that TNA would incorporate the youth in its leadership saying it was time for them to lead the country.
“For the longest time, the youth have been told to look up to their elders but now a time has come for the elders to turn to the youth, let us collectively carry the nation forward,” Kenyatta told his supporters.
In the colourful ceremony held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, he described his new political outfit as one that had broken away from the yokes of past party dictatorships.
“In my career in politics, I can testify that 90 percent of the problems in political parties in Kenya take place during the nomination of candidates. If the fear of being rigged out at the nomination stage is removed, there will be less need for more political parties,” he said.
“The accommodation of losing candidates into other positions would safeguard the cardinal principle of fair competition while assuring that after the competition the like-minded, able and popular are able to work together for our nation and its people instead of engaging in negative and destructive politics,” said the DPM.
Kenyatta who decamped from KANU having served as its national chairman assured that TNA would scuttle the belief that politicians were bigger than the party ideologies.
He said his government under TNA would take responsibility and be accountable to all its actions.
“Our party is one whose engine is oiled with the dreams of every Kenyan,” Kenyatta stated.
He added: “The government cannot always solve the social problems inflicting the citizens but it can create an enabling environment for citizens.”
Noting that the principles under which political parties exist have been greatly abused, Kenyatta said that with the new political parties act, any party that pursued individualistic agenda and personality cults had no future in the Kenya of today.
“Parties have come and gone since the pre-colonial era. Ideologies have been hatched and crushed even before the ink has dried on party manifestos and many are forced to believe that parties are only a means to gain power,” he told the thousands of Kenyans who had graced the occasion.
He emphasised the need for peace and tolerance and a shift to issue based campaigns and respect to opponents.
“Let us take the path least taken. Our actions in the coming days and months must speak louder than the words we utter. Let us not be drawn into name calling and politics as usual that has been characteristic of previous electioneering seasons,” he appealed.
“Our ambassadors of change must drive this new image of a modern party. This republic must emerge from the next elections stronger and more united than ever.”
Notably, the party’s leadership has been drawn from professionals.
Secretary General Onyango Oloo asked Kenyans and especially the youth to refuse intimidation and believe that their time to lead the nation had come.
He hit out at politicians who focus on their past roles in the clamour for the country’s independence saying that should not serve as a basis to demand for the country’s leadership.
“Thank you for the role you played but that is not enough to demand for leadership without further qualifications,” Oloo said.
“We refuse as a people to be told that we cannot lead because we did not throw the biggest stone,” he added.
Kenyatta thanked his wife Margaret and family for their support
The launch was attended by Kenyatta’s wife Margaret, former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta, MPs and several Cabinet ministers led by Eugene Wamalwa who said the time had come to reform the Kenyan politics if we were to move forward as a country.
“In this election, the torch of leadership is going to pass from the Lancaster generation that I would call the Moses generation to the Joshua generation which is the Uhuru generation,” Wamalwa said.
He added that it was time for the “Young Turks” to take over the country’s leadership.
“I believe that as a nation, as we transit from the analogue technology to the digital technology, this nation is going to see the same transition in our politics and we are going to see our analogue politicians going home and our digital politicians coming in,” he said amidst cheers.
Wamalwa also said that Kenyans needed leaders who would empower them and free them from tribalism and corruption.
“I believe that now is the time for the Kenyan eagle to shed the beak of corruption, talons of tribalism and feathers of impunity. Because TNA is a party of the young people, that you the young people of Kenya will be the new beaks, talons and feathers that the Kenyan eagle is going to grow,” the Justice Minister stated.
“The young people are just asking for a nation that will not give them handouts but will give them hand ups and empowerment,” he added.
Kenyatta’s ally and ICC co-accused Eldoret North MP William Ruto was also in attendance.
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