ODM Secretary-General Agnes Zani with party leader Raila Odinga at a past event. [PHOTO/the-star.co.ke]
ODM leaders are divided over the recent call by Opposition chief Raila Odinga urging supporters to shun independent candidates.
Though ODM Secretary-General Agnes Zani (Nominated Senator) seemed downplay the emerging differences, party chairman John Mbadi remained adamant that not handling the independents with caution was tantamount to 'killing' democracy.
Zani on Monday said the independents who ditched the party after the nominations are not enemies of the Orange Party.
She however explained that ODM will stand only with the party nominees in the campaigns starting May 28.
"Independent candidates are our friends; we cannot say they are our enemies. What we want to explain is that when we go outside there as ODM, we will stand with the party nominees but they (independent candidates) are also ours," said Zani.
However, Zani appeared to be contradicting Raila's recent declaration in Kisumu where he said all independent candidates are enemies of the party trying to use his name for selfish gains.
"We have never said anywhere that we will campaign for them," said Raila on Sunday.
Mbadi seems to be in support of this as we went ahead to quote constitutional provisions which says that all independents are not members of any party.
"We are fully aware that the nominations had serious challenges in a number of places. These shortcomings notwithstanding, our supporters must not lose sight of the bigger national agenda at hand," said Mbadi.