Deputy President William Ruto says the formation of Jubilee Party was in the works long before the 2013 general election.
Speaking on Thursday last week on the sidelines of the UNGA meeting of world leaders, Ruto said merging the 12 parties into Jubilee Party was to prevent disagreements associated with coalition governments.
“After learning from the major challenges that have faced coalition parties dating back to between 2002 and 2008, it’s time to bring Kenyans together under one government. From 2003 for five years, we witnessed the challenges. Then again in 2008, with the grand coalition government,” he said.
He added: “With nusu this nusu that, it didn’t work well for the other governments and for the first time, President Uhuru Kenyatta and I have decided to do something different. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
From 2013, Ruto and President Uhuru had a partnership government. Uhuru’s The National Alliance (TNA) and Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) formed the government with 10 other parties.
The 12 parties have already wound up forming Jubilee Party.
Ruto says there is need for Kenyans to identify political parties with a national outlook.
“This is what Jubilee stands for. We want to bring to Kenyans something new,” he said.
He added that after 10 years of complaints of ‘we were short-changed in the memorandum of understandings,” it was time Kenyans moved forward with a common goal.