President Uhuru Kenyatta is this week expected to preside over the first National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Jubilee Party, the first one in three years.
Details of heated meeting that will have Uhuru, Ruto, & Murathe in the same room
The meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow
A file photo of President Uhuru Kenyatta with his deputy William Ruto
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Jubilee Secretary General Raphael Tuju on Tuesday said the NEC meeting is likely to he held on Thursday depending on the President's availability.
The meeting is expected to be heated as Kenyatta and his deputy turned rival William Ruto has also been invited for the meeting.
The Ruto team had been pressuring Kenyatta to convene a NEC meeting, even at one time threatening that the DP could convene a NEC meeting without involving his boss.
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However, the NEC meeting is likely to be hostile to the DP as Kenyatta's allies have been silently changing its membership and is now dominated by Kenyatta's allies.
NEC constitutes the Party Leader (Uhuru Kenyatta), the deputy party leader (William Ruto), chairman (Nelson Dzuya), the vice-chairman (David Murathe), secretary-general (Raphael Tuju), and deputy secretary-general (Caleb Kositany).
Murathe's encounter with Ruto is likely to be tense given that the two have in the past made unsavory statements against each other.
Indeed, Murathe had said in his resignation statement that it was not tenable to sit with Ruto at the NEC having such passionate views against the DP.
"I now find that it is no longer tenable to stay on as the party vice-chairman, given that I will have to sit in the same National Executive Council with a man I am taking to court to block from running for president," The Jubilee Vice Chair said in resignation statement which was turned down by President Kenyatta even after Ruto went public claiming Murathe had been fired.
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Other NEC members are majority leaders in Parliament Aden Duale (National Assembly) and Fatuma Dullo (Senate), as well as chief whips Benjamin Washiali (National Assembly) and Irungu Kangata (Senate). It also includes members of the NMC where a number of Kenyatta loyalists on Tuesday approved despite protests by the Ruto team.
The entry of new NMC officials, who are loyal to the President, is expected to give Kenyatta more powers to carry out his agenda in the NEC.
The five new NMC members include Lucy Macharia, Marete Marangu, Walter Nyambati, Jane Nampaso and James Waweru.
Kositany, the only NEC members who has been fiercely championing the DP's cause, is likely to be removed from the position of Deputy Secretary based on Tuju's comments on Tuesday.
“I want to be very clear that we will not be very merciful when it comes to the discipline of the members. In the past, we have been very generous of to the party members, some of them even using without authority the stationery of the party and expecting us to allow that kind of dysfunction. I am sorry, (but) they have been mistaken and disciplinary action will be taken,” Tuju said in reference to Kositany who has been writing letters contradicting his boss.
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