NAIROBI, Kenya Dec 2 – Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi has lashed out at Deputy President William Ruto on the proposal to postpone the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) referendum to be held alongside the 2022 General Election.
Mudavadi, who spoke hours after the Deputy President called for more time to build consensus around BBI constitutional changes, described the DP’s position as a sign of ineffective leadership.
“Building consensus is key, but time is of the essence. The BBI has timelines that should be adhered to for the country to have a say and move on. As a leader, taking Kenyans in circles without a clear position amounts to a failure to provide effective leadership,” Mudavadi said, soon after Ruto addressed a press conference accompanied by more than 100 political leaders allied to him.
“There is room to improve the document further, it is never too late to do the right thing,” Ruto said at his official residence in Karen.
The DP has been sending mixed signals, at one time lauding the tremendous progress made in capturing aspirations of Kenya’s in the BBI Bill saying it has had major gains for the ordinary person, otherwise described to as ‘hustler nation’.
Mudavadi, who recently launched his parallel signature collection campaign, said Ruto’s demands are unrealistic.
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who led the signature collection exercise in Murang’a County, reiterated his earlier stand that “It’s full speed ahead as the drive draws near to a close as we ready ourselves for the next steps of the BBI process.”
The BBI Amendment Bill, which is a product of the March 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Odinga, was unveiled last week, with the secretariat now seeking at least 1 million signatures to validate it.
Raila has declared that “the train has left the station” vowing that “there is no room for further amendments.”
But Ruto insists that “there is no hurry to have a national referendum.”
“What is the hurry, a door should not be shut for better ideas,” he said, “we are happy that some of the proposals we wanted done have been done but there is still much more room for improvement of the Bill.”
He said the proposed referendum should be shelved to be held alongside the General Election in 2022.
The resolution was made after the DP met with 146 Members of Parliament, seven Governors and other leaders during a meeting to deliberate on the BBI.
Ruto and his allies want funds for the referendum set aside and directed to other “urgent issued like the COVID-19 pandemic and as well as support small micro-enterprises.”
Ruto and his team want the proposed referendum to be structured in a way that will enable Kenyans to vote for specific issues.
“This is possible, we can have a referendum that is well structured with specific issues to be voted on as opposed to have a YES/NO contest on all the issues,” Ruto said.
As part of their proposals, the leaders want the number of nominated Members of Parliament reduced by at least 60 members and have more members elected by Kenyans.
While the BBi proposal fronted the removal of Women representatives, the DP’s faction proposes bringing back the 47 women representatives so as to have 94 elected women in both houses.
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