HOW IT WAS MADE TECHNICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR DPM TO STAY IN ODM 1.

In October 2010, ODM held a National Governing Council at Bomas of Kenya. At this meeting, various proposals were adopted for the amendment of the party constitution to align it to the new national Constitution. 2. Among the adopted proposals were total restructuring of the party to bring on board Counties as branches instead of constituencies which would now become sub-branches, and reduction of national offices. 3. Another important adopted proposal was amending the clause that gave the party leader the automatic ticket as the party presidential flag bearer. 4. All these were to be ratified by the National Delegates Congress to be called later. 5. Nothing happened until end of 2011 when the Legal Committee which was supposed to have worked on the amendments but had not was again instructed by the National Executive Council (NEC) to work on the amendments. 6. The legal committee only got active in January 2012, even then only producing options on amendments to presidential nomination rules. The irony was you could not pretend to amend nomination rules to allow competitive nominations if Article 6 of the party constitution which gave the party leader an automatic ticket remained intact. It was therefore an exercise in futility. 7. On December 26 the PM and DPM told the public at the annual Maragoli cultural Festival at Mbale in my Sabatia constituency that we would compete for the ODM presidential ticket and whoever lost would support the winner. Subsequently, at a party conference at KCB Karen, Nairobi, they reiterated the same to newly elected grassroots officials and both hit the campaign trail amongst grassroots officials. 8. the DPM campaign was anchored on internal democracy within the party; opening up competitive nominations at all levels by amending clauses in the constitution; increasing wide participation in the nomination process by voting at the county rather that the restricted NDC in Nairobi. 9. At this point, arguments for or against these proposals became heated subject of debates. 10. At a NEC meeting before Easter, NEC settled on amending Article 6 and providing for nominations at the County level. The legal Committee was instructed to burn the midnight oil over Easter and provide the amendments before the party filed for compliance with the Registrar of Political parties. 11. The Legal Committee never met and on the Tuesday after Easter, the Secretariat presented the old constitution for full registration. 12. it is at this point that it became apparent that there was a systematic plot; Not to amend the constitution. Tie the process under Section 20 of the Political Parties Act. 13. the import of these manoeuvres to DPM were; To tie him in the processes of Section 20 until it would too late for him to compete and/or leave the party.

Section 20 is very stringent on how a party amends its duly registered constitution. (See attached copy). Additionally, a laborious process would kick in. Applying this section meant dragging the process with no certainty that the party will ever amend the constitution. 14. Indeed, it became apparent that at one stage in the process, either the NGC or NDC would be manipulated reject the amendments; by which time the die would have been cast for DPM. The issue then that encouraged DPMs decision was that he could not reconcile his conscience against a party reluctant to embrace internal democracy and the principles of devolution which it had professed to stand for.