Leave us alone, Coast MPs tell Ruto
Coast MPs have told Deputy President William Ruto to allow them decide their own political destiny.
The legislators who met the DP at Leopard Beach Hotel in Diani, Kwale, on Saturday say they told him they will form political party for the region ahead of the 2017 General Election.
“We asked him to leave this region alone so we can decide our future,” Coast Parliamentary Group (CPG) chairman Gideon Mung’aro told the Daily Nation.
“Coast has traditionally been used by politicians from outside to ascend to power then we are left out when goodies are shared out,” the Kilifi North MP Mung’aro lamented.
Others who attended the four-hour meeting that was chaired by Mr Mung’aro were MPs Dan Kazungu (Malindi), Harrison Kombe (Magarini), Samuel Gonzi Rai (Kinango), Khatib Mwashetani (Lungalunga) and Naomi Shaban (Taveta) and Kwale County Woman representative Zainab Chidzuga.
POLITICAL PARTY
Earlier in the day, at Dzivani Village in Gandini, Kinango in Kwale, the MPs had declared they would not go back on their push for a new party ahead of the next elections.
They resolved that the region would have its own political party in 2017. The party will be used as a negotiation tool, they said.
“We shall have our own party and we will support the government of the day or any party, be it ODM, Jubilee, JAP but on condition that we shall have our own share of the deal,” said Mr Mung’aro.
Mr Ruto is said to have told the MPs that the Jubilee government would support development in the area.
Kwale Governor Salim Mvurya supported the idea to have a political party for the region when he asked the mourners at a funeral to “support one of our own in 2017”.
“It is our traditional belief as Mijikenda people that the snuff from a stranger is the best. This time round, let us know that the snuff from our own is the best,” Mr Mvurya said.