NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 14 – The Amani National Congress (ANC) suffered yet another setback on Friday with the exit of a second top ranking member in less than a week.
Eliud Owalo, a former campaign manager for Raila Odinga who ditched the Orange Party in August 2019 to join the Musalia Mudavadi-led political outfit, announced his resignation as a member of the ANC citing the need to allow the party leader space to craft his 2022 presidential campaign.
“It is now fitting that the space around you should be decongested. This will allow you to make critical decisions on the population and leadership pf the party under the new constitution,” he said in an emailed statement.
His exit mirrors Barrack Muluka’s resignation as ANC Secretary General on Wednesday, the senior member of Mudavadi’s think tank having cited the need to allow Party Leader Musalia Mudavadi the latitude to make critical decisions ahead of the 2022 presidential poll.
Owalo further expressed the desire to create what he said was a “ reasonable leg room between himself and Mudavadi to safeguard and sustain their personal friendship,respect and positive professional engagement.”
Owalo contested in the August 2019 Kibra parliamentary by-election where ODM’s Imran Okoth emerged the winner having garnered over 24,000 votes.
He trailed in third place with slightly over 5,000 votes behind Jubilee Party’s McDonald Mariga who bagged 11,230 votes.
While leaving the Raila- led party in August 2019, Owalo cited divergence of political ideology as well as personal reasons.
“My resignation is informed by the fact that my political ideology, convictions and belief no longer has convergence or depict any congruence and common denominator with that of the ODM Party; its value-orientation and practices,” he wrote in a letter also addressed to the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties at the time.
“Consequently, there is no iota of enthusiasm remaining in me to warrant my continued stay in the ODM Party; thereby necessitating my strategic exit from the Party by way of immediate resignation,” he added asking the ORPP to facilitate the “instant removal of my name from the ODM Party Membership Register”.
