Former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has expressed some skepticism on the paused bipartisan negotiations.
Raila defended President William Ruto during a news conference at the SMK Centre in Nairobi over Azimio and Kenya Kwanza’s failure to reach an agreement on the talks, claiming that someone other than the president is being used to sabotage the negotiations.
Raila asserts that Ruto is no longer in charge of Kenya Kwanza’s side of the cross-party negotiations since he has lost all authority.
He claimed that someone with nefarious intentions was trying to thwart the negotiations and make sure Azimio went back to the streets.
Azimio noted that the nonpartisan Kenya Kwanza team was receiving orders from a number of sources, which prevented them from having productive discussions.
“The Kenya Kwanza side is basically several teams rolled into one; the players are not moving in the same direction and are reporting to different bosses.”
“They are receiving various orders, and different regions are obviously tugging in different directions. Second, Kenya Kwanza is unsure if the talks should continue or not, according to Raila.
In order to waste the time and avoid coming to a reasonable conclusion about the issues at hand, Azimio claimed that Kenya Kwanza was purposefully acting like confused negotiators.
They purposefully lack direction from Mr. William Ruto over how to proceed. According to Kenya Kwanza, the conversations are a way to manage the political environment, bring down the political fervor, and carry on with business as normal.
However, Raila forewarned the Kenya Kwanza side that they would soon issue additional resolutions since they were aware of the game being played by the government’s side of the negotiations.
