The Party of National Unity (PNU) will give Jubilee Party refugees a vehicle to vie for electoral positions.
Aspirants pushed out of the Jubilee Party will have a place to go to if the incoming PNU presumptive leader Peter Munya has his way.
Munya, who is also the Council of Governors (CoG) chairman said the former President Mwai Kibaki’s party will rescue victims from President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party.
There is an anticipated cut-throat battle for nomination tickets in the party which has seen major defections from the opposition Cord and other smaller parties.
PNU has refused to merge with others to form Jubilee Party but will support President Uhuru’s re-election bid. It will also field candidates in all other elective positions.
The success of the merger's opposition is yet to be celebrated since a faction within the party is insistent on folding up and joining the new vehicle that has taken root in the Mount Kenya region.
Munya says his party will use an existing pre-election agreement with Uhuru’s The National Alliance (TNA) to cash in on the Jubilee fall out.
“We will take advantage of the fallout to offer leaders opportunity to compete at the ballot. Politics is about seizing advantages. Jubilee has rolled back the democratic clock and reduced Kenya’s political space against our wishes and advice. We are offering that space,” said Munya as quoted by the Standard.
“They are killing democracy, we are opening it up. So to those who are disenfranchised, those who will be locked out of Jubilee by its tyranny and to those who want space to express and pursue their rights, we say that as PNU, we are ready and willing to embrace you,” Munya said.
Munya has expressed fear that the forceful merger of parties show that Jubilee may not undertake meaningful nominations for interested candidates.
“To put it in plain terms, only renowned party loyalists will get the nomination tickets. The fact of the matter is that with the new JP, we are back to those days when one had to prove he is party-damu to get a ticket,” he said.
The straight-shooting governor says everybody he knows in Jubilee appears dazed and unaware of what the merger is all about.
He added that the merger is eroding democratic gains in the country as it is limiting options for expression of divergent views.