Ruto Responds to Reports on Forming Coalition With ODM
President William Ruto on Sunday evening during a Presidential Town Hall held in Mombasa County confirmed that he had not struck a coalition agreement with Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga.
While responding to questions directed to him at the forum, Ruto stated that the formation of the broad-based government was geared at fostering national unity and the ODM leaders appointed to the cabinet will help his administration achieve this paramount objective.
“We did not form a coalition agreement with ODM. What we have is members of ODM who have agreed to come and work with us, so we can put the country first and be able to deal with the challenges that bring Kenya to where it is,” the Head of State responded.
“We have no formal coalition!” he added.
The President also stated that one of the reasons he dissolved the cabinet was the need to dismiss the notion that his friends play key roles in the running of the government.
The president defended his decision to re-hire some of the members who served in the now-dissolved cabinet.
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“Even those who I have allowed serving in cabinet, they must now know, that we were friends but now the terms are different,” he stated.
Ruto additionally, defended the Cabinet nominations stating that the broad-based government was a coming together of people who had similar ideas in terms of manifestos presented in the 2022 campaigns.
According to Ruto, despite having different political opinions, there were some similarities in the Azimio and Kenya Kwanza manifestos, which ideally should enable the two political formations to work together.
This comes after Raila stated that he and the President were not in a coalition despite the nomination of four leaders from ODM.
“As articulated in our statement on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, neither the ODM Party nor Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party has entered into any coalition agreement with President Ruto’s UDA party,” Odinga stated.
Raila was responding to reports on whether ODM had ditched Azimio in favour of forming a government of national unity with the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
Ruto Responds to Reports on Forming Coalition With ODM
