The battle line is drawn between the scores of candidates who have set their eyes on the newly created Awendo parliamentary constituency seat in Migori County.
This is one of the 80 extra parliamentary constituencies country-wide which were recently created by the Interim Electoral and Boundary Commission {IEBC} and endorsed by an act of parliament.
The new electoral constituency has already attracted four aspirants who have already declared their intention of vying for the seat.
The newly created constituency w hived out of the old and larger Rongo constituency. It is located in area whose residents represented people of diverse communal, clan and tribal background, making it to be true cosmopolitan constituency in the true sense of the word.
Furthermore, Awendo constituency is arguably the smallest among other parliamentary constituencies in the greater and larger Southern Nyanza region. Its economic mainstay rotate around sugar cane farming and the Awendo-based SONYSUGAR company, a wholly government owned brown sugar manufacturing mill
The newly created Awendo parliamentary era is the smallest constituency I the greater Southern Nyanza region covering only Awendo district, which ha no administrative Division.except Awendo town,
Its area of jurisdiction is covering only for administrative location, namely Sakwa West,Sakwa North, Sakwa North,Sakwa South and Sakwa Central an area in which Awendo town is included.
The inhabitant of this constituency which is a cosmopolitan constituency in the true sense of the word represents people of diverse tribal and communal backgrounds.
Resident of the constituency represents the indigenous Sakwa people, who are occupying most parts of the west and lower parts along the Kuja River, while the inhabitants of the upper parts comprises of Jo-Alego Kogelo, Jochula who migrated from Rusinga Island in Suba region,
There are also non-Luos like the Luhyias, Maragolis, Kisiis,Somalis and immigrants from other major Luo locations like Nyakach, Kachuonyo,Uyoma,Asembo and Kano.
Owing to the areas proximity to the borders, cattle rustling business has refused to go away in this particular district ever since the country attained its political independence. These rustling. It borers the nomadic communities like the Maasais, Kurias who believe in cattle rustling as part of their cultural behaviors. Also the other neighbors are the Kisiis who are relatively much more civilized farmers. Cattle rustling have been a real menace to the residents, taking into account hat rustlers were now using sophisticated modern weapons like guns when executing their heinous crimes, resulting in deaths.
Amongst the individual political personalities who declared their interests in the new seat includes John Otieno Owuor, a Nairobi University graduate, who is currently working as the Personal Asistant[PA} to the Minister for Public Services Dalmas Oieno, who is also the incumbent Rongo MP.
Owuor is considered to be highly experienced in public service because before he joined the staff of the Minister, he was involved in the work with NGO and had initiated development projects of the infrastructure such as Schoos, medicare,women and youth groups.
Owuor is also credited for having been linked to the acquisition of school buses for several secondary shoos in Awendo, one of them being Manyatta Secondary School.
His work with the Minister has brought him close to the electorate in both Rongo and Awendo district and if he is to use his contacts with the voters, he will be advantaged over his rivals.
Another aspirant is Jude Michael Ayieko a former senior official with KRA who resigned his lucrative job with the government in order to contest the Awendo seat. He hails from near Pe-Hill Secondary School in Sakwa East Location.
Also in the race is the Principal of Gamba High School in Sakwa West Fred Otieno Kopiyo who will also square it up with Eric Oyoo who hails from Sakwa West and currently working it an NGO in Nairobi.
The former MP for Rongo George Ochillo-Ayacko who was expected to give the new entrants a run for their money is reported not to be in the race and that he has shifted his interests elsewhere, though he has yet to make his stands known to the electorate.
The creation of the Awendo constituency has now brought to abrupt end the bloody and violent campaign pitting the supporters of the two political giants in the region.
The two are now placed in different constit8encies with Dalmas Otieno remaining in the old Rongo constituency while Ochillo-Ayacko is in Awendo constituency. The list of aspirants may not be the final one, because the rumor making the round in Awendo and its environs say more aspirants are expected to join the race within the next few weeks.
The prices of raw cane is likely to dominate the campaign with each of the aspirants articulating how he will have the farmers in the region served better. There are numerous complaints against the management of the Awendo based SONYSUGAR with allegations of poor relations with the cane farmers.
The company, which is wholly owned by the government has recently unilaterally reduced the cane price from Kshs 4,800 per ton fro Kshs 3,800 per ton The farmers are complaining that they were not involved in the decision.
The other issues include the on-going cut-throat competition and scrambling over the scarce raw cane between the SONYSUGAR and two newly established sugar mills. On of the new mills is located near Oria market on the Ndhiwa side of River Kuja. The second one is Sukari Industries are reportedly giving SONYSUGAR hard times by way of unlawfully harvesting the cane which were developed with SONYSUGAR money..
From: Ouko joachim omolo
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2012
Squatters at the Coast have threatened to boycott the forthcoming general elections if they are not resettled before then. The threats come at the time the Ipsos Synovate poll says Deputy Prime Ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi would both defeat the Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the event that the country fails to get an outright winner in the first round of the elections set for March 4 next year. Uhuru family owns a big chunk of land at the Coast believed to would have been grabbed by his father when he was the president.
Statistics from the Ministry of Lands show that over 130,000 families of squatters are identified and registered in the province with Mombasa having more than 50,000, Kwale-25,000, Lamu 4000, Kilifi-26,000, Tana River-1,500 and Malindi 22,000. The statistic does not indicate those of Kwale and Taita Taveta – with a total of 80, 000 hectares of land belonging to absentee landlords in the region.
According to the Ministry of Lands records, absentee landlords own more than 77, 800 hectares of land whilst the ten mile coastal strip total land area is documented as 80, 000 consisting of 1128 parcels.
The worst hit county is Kilifi where they own more than 75, 000ha, Kilifi 1, 300ha, Malindi 235ha, Mombasa 400ha, while Lamu, River and Taita Taveta are still un-specified, though most is reportedly government land.
Coast province squatter problem is a major thorny and highly sensitive issue of historical injustices that continues to fester until today whose history goes to as far back as the days of the slave trade and the Arabic sultans who colonized the coastal region as well as the Indian Ocean Islands like Zanzibar and in the process grabbed land from the indigenous communities for themselves – especially the so called ten mile coastal strip.
The report of the Ndung’u-led Commission on Land in Kenya does not only cite the region as one where prominent political families, who mostly live upcountry, own most of the prime land, it also shows how difficult it will be to reclaim these potions of land.
It is very sensitive that Chief Justice Willy Mutunga will find it very tough to resolve, despite the warning that land grabbers and looters of public property that the Judiciary would spearhead efforts to recover them.
Dr Mutunga has called for surrender of ill-gotten property, failure to which the consequences of not doing so will be severe. It explains why, even though he has appealed to all those who are holding public property to return it for the intended use, none of them has surrendered.
It also explains why President Kibaki has not acted on the recommendations by Ndungu report that he should act on people implicated on land grabbing. This is despite the fact that the law, like the Mazrui Land Trust Act of 1914 continues to pose legal challenges in courts today, preventing the Government from addressing some historical injustices.
Even Land Minister, Mr James Orengo cannot manage to tackle the issue of grabbed lands, despite the fact that land issues at the Coast would be addressed under the new constitution and the National Land Policy.
The Government was expected to start implementing the Ndung’u report on irregular land allocation immediately it presented the report to the president, which according to Orengo does not need consultation with Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki or form another commission to implement it.
Orengo had promise to take action on the Ndung’u report, adding that those who were allocated public land with impunity will have themselves to blame. He promised that those who benefited from irregular land allocations could face prosecution.
According to land reform, in order to do this the Government would have to purchase land from private individuals and multinationals that own large tracts of arable land and create new settlement schemes.
It must ensure land resources are used to help the poor. Where in the past sale of land took place between willing buyer, willing seller, there can be no justifiable excuse for the latter to evict the seller.
The Ndungu Report which investigated Land grabbing in the past, adversely named over 100 MP’s sitting on both sides of the House in the last Parliament. Most are still political ‘Big Wigs’ in the current standoff.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Peaceful world is the greatest heritage
That this generation can give to the generations
To come- All of us have a role.
In line with the AKR Constitution, be advised that, AKR elections are due. You will soon receive further communication from the AKR Patron, our High Commissioner on this matter.
From the entire Executive Committee, we indeed enjoyed serving you over the last one year and would urge all to come out in large numbers to vote for their candidate of choice once elections are called.
Meanwhile, be notified that, we are planning for Mashujaa day extravaganza on saturday the 20th October 2012. Further details will be communicated to you in due course.
The Urp’s hope of spreading its wings and influence as well of political cout in the South Rift region of the Rift Valley Province is fading much faster than the party’s leadership ha expected following the party’s recently concluded “Kangaroo” grass root elections.
In both Kericho and Bomet Counties only those William Ruto’s sycophants whose nominations and eventually the elections into various branches and County offices were staged managed had the opportunity of being elected during the much flawed election, which reminds the local of the KANU’s hay days, when party officials were only selected than being elected in a democratic manner. These elections have left the URP parties on whose ticket, the Eldoret North MP William Ruto intend to use its ticket in his presidential bid wounded.
The poorly organized grass root elections left the trail of jittery between those who were hand-picked to fill the county and district branches and those who felt they were deliberately denied their democratic and constitutional rights of contesting the elections for the various party’s positions.
The stakeholders and party operatives and sympathizers in the two counties have agreed that the elections were pre-determined by the URP leadership, and only those who were sanctioned by Ruto had succeeded in winning position.
Instead of enhancing and strengthening the party’s position in the two region, it has even worsened Ruto’s position and standing among he Kipsigis people.
Those who had maintained that Ruto’s departure from the ODM had dealt a heavy blow to Raila Odinga’s popularity among the Kipsigis people have now changed their minds.
At the same time, the much highlighted report of the ditching of the ODM by the Sotik MP Dr Joyce Laboso. The MP had announced that she had ditched the ODM and run to the URP, alleging that the party had failed to deliver the goods to her electorates in Sotik.
The truth has since emerged that Dr Laboso only fled the ODM after realizing that the populist former Nairobi PC Francis Sigei, who has been a Kenya’s High Commissioner to Canada had resigned and headed for Sotik to contest in the same constituency.
Dr Laboso, who is arguably one of the highly educated Kipsigis women, in married to a Luo Mr Barrack Abonyo from Nyakach. She had stepped into the shoes of her younger sister the late Lorna Laboso who died in 2008 in an aircraft mishap together with the former Roads Minister the ate Kipkalya Kones, the former Bomet MP after narrowly wining in the consequent by-elections that followed. But she was given a run for her money by the former President Moi’s ADC Brigadier Sitienei who contested the by-election on an UDM ticket.
Brig. Sitienei had teamed up with the populist Gen Koech and had it not because Raila had intervened on her behalf the combined force was going to slaughtered and skinned her alive. Her defeat was inevitable and certain until Raila came into picture and vigorously campaigned for her. And now that she has ditched Raila Dr.Laboso political future as an MP now looked gloomy and cannot be accurately predicted y local pundit and observers alike. The voters were vehemently opposed to Dr.Laboso. The voters had protested against her saying that electing her was like giving the people of Nyakach constituency in Nyanza where she is married an additional parliamentary seat.
The Luo tug is still hanging on the neck and shadow of Dr.Laboso and not going to fade away in the near future and could be dashed and prove to be a pipe dream. The Kipsigis consider their daughter who I married to a Luo like a lost person and non-entity within the society.
Members of this proud sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic group despises the Luos as uncircumcised people as called “Ng’ethai”singularly and plurally called all Luos as “Ng’ethic. Therefore a Kipsigis woman who is married to a Luo is derogatively called ”Cheplemindet.
In this context, Dr Laboso will have to go extra mile to clear herself of a Luo tug and win back her Sotik parliamentary seat, in what local, pundits have predicted to be an up hi task and a hurdles which she must overcome
Off course Dr. Laboso is a happily married woman with grown up children and the daughter of the highly respected Kipsigis farmer the late Fredrick Laboso, ho before becoming a businessman and a farmer had served the Kenya Tea Company Limited one of the multinational tea companies operating in Kericho and Bomet for many years as an accountant.
Dr. Laboso, however, survived the onslaught by the likes of Antony Kimeto {Sotet} the former Sotik MP whom her younger sister the late Lorna Laboso had beaten during the 2007 general election under the euphoria of ODM that was swiping he Kipsigs region clean of KANU. It was through the concerted effort and intervention by Raila Odinga the ODM party leader who managed to persuaded the dissenting voters to vote for Dr.Laboso.
William Ruto’s URP party is also facing formidable opposition as the Nicholas Biwott NVP and the UDM which is under the leadership of the popular former military boss Lt.Gen {rtd] John Arap Koech and KANU are said to be tightening their muscles on URP and are in the processing of driving URP out of the South Rift region..
Hon.Laboso’s departure is therefore considered by ODM operatives in the South Rift as in inconsiquental and might be a good riddance because she was not a high performer as an MP. Her presence in the URP may not have any value added consequences in the party.
Raila visited the South Rift over the weekend, and the tour by Prime Minister seemed to have rekindled the mass support for the ODM by the Kipsigis people. People in the huge crowd who attended the Prime Minister meeting first at Siongoroi Catholic Mission in Chepalungu constituency and later at Silibwet were heard shouting ‘KaiKai werit ap Cheramogi kosir bik chon tugul che mache ng’echeret.{The son of Jaramogi is the best among all those who aspiring to be elected the next
During the tour the three Kipsigis MPa allied to ODM series of meetings that Raila addressed in various places in the region meetings ab bounatet.These were the Road Minister Franklin Bett {Buret} .Assistant Energy Minister Magerer Lang’at {Kipkellion and Home Affairs Assistant Minister Beatrice Kones {Bomet}.
The MP advised his audience not to think narrowly and shallowly on tribal line, but to think like nationalist and work for tribes to come together as one people of Kenya.
At a recent meeting of the National Executive Committee of the UDM chaired by the party supremo Gen Koech and attended by over 30 delegates who attended the meeting in Nairobi two weeks ago.The UDM’s NEC was a full housed with the presence of its only MP Prof Hellen Sambili the Mp for Mogotio, the Vice chairman Chaftan Mokku, the Secretary General Martin Kamwaro.
All the indications after the meeting were that KANU would soon join this newly found formidable alliance, which is capable of clipping the wings of William Ruto‘s sweeping euphoria in the Rift Valley.
During his recent tour of Ndhiwa district where he had one to drum up the support for KANU candidate, Tom Otieno Onyango Aila, who contested the by election on a KANU ticket, but lost to an ODM candidate.
Drama was witnessed during the burial of former East Africa PS David Nalo in Kisumu County when agitated residents of the area told Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s sister Ruth Adhiambo who is aspiring to be Kisumu Governor that they will never elect her and she first of all tell them her roots.
This happened in the full glare of his brother who started dumbstruck at the unfolding events as many refused to listen to her drowning her speech in ululations and catcalls.
“Ok wanyal yiero owadu kaka President, Owadu Oburu kaka Senator halafu in Governor” (we can’t elect Raila your brother as president and Oburu too as a Senator, then u also as a Governor? That can’t happen)
The 200Kg weighing lady then was forced to cut her speech vowing in dholuo that she will be elected whether Kisumu County voters likes it or not.
“You will know who my brother is, he has seen what you have done by embarrassing him” she said as she put her heavy down while breathing menace in her eyes.
If we know the Truth, we shall not go wrong…..and where there is smoke, there is fire.
With all these hullabaloo……..Obama is still the man for Security, Peace and Unity in the Rehabilitation and Reform for common good of all. With President Obama as Commander in Chief, we shall not fear that someone will dare open the window of an aircraft when the Plane is airborne……..
If given a chance to complete his second term, the world will be free from the looming 3rd World War; Insecurities from Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Mungiki along with other Mafia related Gangs for Terrorism which were created for a purpose and are meant to protect the unscrupulous business of the International Corporate Special Interests and networking, whose activities fueled anger and resentments, created and paid for Pirating and Drug Trafficking, child porno including the Global Girl Child Trafficking for illegal and immoral Prostitution, Sale of Human flesh and racketeering of human organs with all manner of environmental destruction and pollution headed for disaster including Nature destructions and distability all of which is the reason for Global Economic Collapse ……..a case that has resulted in The Scramble to Africa through Chinese/Indian Commission Agency to marshal and unfairly steal Africa’s Public Wealth Resources including scavenging for Intellectual Property Thieving of Oil for Petrol & Gas, Mineral of all manner from Diamond, Gold, Titanium, Calta chips for computer, cell-phone, Radio signal assembly and industrial aspects with an aim to amass wealth and power; taking and owning community and individual people’s Homestead and Land (driving people out of their land and homes) including Water tower and pushing Victim of Circumstances to the edge to poverty and collapse by denying them meaningful honorable and dignified livelihood and survival that has resulted and caused too many loss of lives, and dipped many into untold unbearable pain and sufferings which is now spreading all over the world like BUSHFIRE………
These uncaring unscrupulous people of International Network of the “Free Trading Enterprising” are FREE LOADERS who want everything for free instead of fair share deal of “GIVE AND TAKE” where everybody who struggles to improve their livelihood and survival gets a fair share dignified value of their worth…..BUT NAY, the selfish and greedy of the Corporate Special Business interest are without boarders …..they are against any form of Regulatory Measures for security; which is why, they created for themselves Mafia Policing Gangs to Terrorize people “in the likes of Al-Qaeda, Mungiki and Al-Shabaab” as they engage in STEALING BY FORCE, WITHOUT EMPATHY, PUBLIC WEALTH AND RESOURCES…… and do not want any collective fair bargain where everyone gets a fair share of the shot in the available opportunity under the Democratic reasonable Legislative Policy Governance and consequently evaded paying TAXES…..where they refuse to play by the same rules.
For this case, they are fighting tooth and nail to shut The GOVERNMENT all over the world and have planned to destroy DEMOCRACY and cause it to DISFUNCTION, so they can easily MONOPOLIZE all manner of business across the Globe, push people to SLAVERY, COLONIZE THE WORLD in their “Free Trading Philosophy” and call it a good deal………Hey, people, they are FREE LOADERS…..they are not after any good…….they bold-faced without shame, they are mean and are without conscious for moral being, they have no respect for Human Rights…….they have committed all manner of crime, violations and abuse against humanity…….consequences of their adversity is all in the open to public…………..They know that, what they are doing is wrong and is hurting people, but they simply don’t care, they do it anyway……They are GREEDY AND SELFISH……and are not ready to apologize or change…….It is because, from their own words, they don’t care about humanity’s pains and sufferings as long as they stay and remain rich and protect their RICHES and WEALTH.
People, there is a conspiracy………this is a War between the Wealthy against the targeted Victims and the poor of the world and completely destroy the Middle-Class……..It is unacceptable people, we must rise up and Stand for our Rights……..The way to go is to get engaged and we all must VOTE INTELLIGENTLY WITH OUR CONCIOUS, for Peace and Unity and for Goodness Sake engraved in Love…….
It is why President Obama worked hard to stabilize the Economy from collapse, Set up Plan of Action to move FORWARD; destroyed Terrorists Strongholds across the regions of the world, is Restoring Democratic Principles for Good and balanced Legislative Governance with Just Rule of Law, engaging like minded to strengthen infrastructures needed to sustain Education Science and Technology including Healthcare, Safety and security for all in the protection of the Environment to preserve Nature, Peace and Unity while engaging in feasible and sustained legislative Rule of Law to protect and preserve Human Rights Dignity in order to improve livelihood and survival.
Now that the world knows the TRUTH, people of the world must unite to avert 3rd world war, bring Peace and Unity by choosing the right thing to do…….Vote Responsible leaders who are with integrity and are not selfish or greedy and who are not vested in self-ego.
Since Love is not cruel or selfish, does no harm and does not inflict pain and suffering; and since Love is Peaceful and in harmony it unites; love does not hate, is not discriminative and is not racial. Love has no boundaries or barrier or limit exchanges of goods and services; but in Trust and fairness, it shares in equal measure and cares because of love. We all must choose the commandment of Love for goodness sake and in Mutual Partnership for common good of all.
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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Riots Groups Emerge in Kisumu
Published on Sep 27, 2012 by kenyacitizentv
Police in Kisumu have for the last two weeksbeen fighting running battles with gangs of youths in the lake side city in a wave of skirmishes that have left observers baffled. But what exactly are the confrontations all about? Well, close to two years after the dreaded baghdad boys gang was proscribed among 32 other illegal organized groups, a faction that was often hired by politicians at the height of the fight for multi party democracy in the 1990’s, has emerged again, this time in the form of two rival gangs operating under the names of china squad and american marine. And police in Kisumu have now confirmed that the two groups which split from the banned baghdad boys are responsible for the current chaos in kisumu town as Judy Kosgei reports
Martin Bashir – Romney camp playing lame debate expectation game
Published on Sep 28, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 28, 2012
Time Magazine’s Michael Crowley, Democratic strategist Julian Epstein and The Daily Beast’s/Newsweek’s Michelle Cottle debate why Team Romney is lowering debate expectations — and whether even a great performance can be enough of a jumpstart to Romney’s flailing candidacy.
Martin Bashir – GOP uncovers voter fraud in their own party
Published on Sep 28, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 28, 2012
MSNBC host Toure and Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson pick apart the Republicans’ excuses about the need for voter I.D. laws after the party cut ties with a firm it hired to help sign up new voters that may have submitted hundreds of fraudulent names.
The scariest thing? about this story is that it didn’t even mention the worst part of the Strategic Allied Consulting methodology: the were re-registering Democrats at incorrect addresses so that their votes won’t be counted. Bradblog is following this story.
mistergarth13 hours ago 3
Voter fraud is what romney did in Massachusetts, election fraud is what the entire republican party is doing all? over the country.
Martin Bashir – Romney’s remedial math on fixing the economy
Published on Sep 28, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 28, 2012
Former vice presidential economic advisor Jared Bernstein corrects Mitt Romney’s muddled math on how much in spending — mostly to social welfare programs — he would need to cut to pay for his planned tax cuts.
[Photo]
Reuters/Reuters – U.S. President Barack Obama participates in an election campaign rally in Virginia Beach, September 27, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama maintains a lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney with 40 days left until the November 6 election, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Thursday.
The daily tracking poll said Obama had 49 percent support to 42 percent for Romney among likely voters. Ipsos interviewed 1,194 registered voters online for the survey.
The result showed the race basically holding where it has been for days with Obama enjoying an advantage over the former Massachusetts governor.
Obama got a bump in support from his Democratic National Convention earlier this month and Romney was hurt by the leak of a video from a private fundraiser he held in May in which he said 47 percent of Americans were dependent on government and unlikely to support him.
The Romney campaign argues that its internal data shows that the race is much closer than most polls are showing.
The precision of the Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points for likely voters.
News Analysis by Arrum Tidi Ogonglo in Homa-Bay Town
The recent tour of Ndhiwa district by the Prime Minister Raila Odinga was a big blessing for dozens of aspirants vying for the various elective positions with the Homa-Bay County.
The man whose lady-luck came calling was the former Country Director of Marie Stoppie Clinics Cyprian Otieno Awiti. He is a candidate in the crowded contest for the position of the Homa-Bay County governor.
There were also other aspirants who would be contesting for the elective positions with the County governance, parliament, senate and county wards.
Raila was in Ndhiwa during the last lap of the campaign for the just concluded by-election in the area. He had gone there to drum up support for this ODM party candidate Agustino Neto Oyugi, who eventually emerged the victorious.
A large number of political luminaries in the greater Southern Nyanza region, especially those eyeing seats within Homa-Bay County turned up in full force to cheer up their leader. Raila and hi entourage made ten stop-overs at the various market places trading centers and, schools and wound up his tour with a public rally at Ndhiwa Town, which was attended by a mamm0th of crowd.
The Prime Minister traversed the full length and width of the expansive Ndhiwa constituency and where he went, Raila who was in jolly mood introduced to the public all the political personalities who had accompanied him. He singled out the names of those who will be vying for the various elective positions calling the names out.
And the man whose name received prolonged applause and ululations was none-other than Cyprian Awiti whom the PM referred by”Ja-Mawego or Ja-Kodondo” telling the crowd that Awiti is eyeing for the position of Homa-Bay County governor.
The mention in of Awiti’s name was received with shouts of “Ja-Mawego kende emawadwaro” We want Awiti only we want or Jomoko go to wakia “we Don’t recognize the others”.
Local pundits were quick in pointing out that this was an act of endorsement Awiti as the man favored by ODM to clinch the Homa-Bay County governor position.
Awit who sat quietly and mingled easily with the huge crowd had his presence not recognized by the crowd until Raila called him by the name. There were several other aspirants for the same position who wee also in attendance and had their names also mentioned by the PM, but the response was very dull. His rivals for the same seat included the former chairman of the ODM election Board Eng Phillip Okundi, a computer experts working with Microsoft Computer International African region Dr Mark Matunga who hails fro Suba region,, Prof Akeyo Omolo from Karachuonyo.
The populist Awiti hails from eastern parts of Karachuonyo constituency lead the packs with highly illustrious track record of active participation in the development activities that spans back to ten years. He has made extensive tour of the entire Homa-Bay County making hefty cash donation towards socio-economic infrastructure, schools, Medicare institutions, churches, women and youth group until his name has become an household word almost to every family.
The County is one of the largest inside Luo-Nyanza covering 8 parliamentary constituencies of Mbita, Gwassi, Ndhiwa, Rangwe, Homa-Bay Town, Karachunyo, Kasipul and Kabondo-Kasipul.
If the Country gets good managers, it cod be developed to become one of the richest among the 47 Counties country-wide. It has many natural resources lie minerals, fisheries, agriculture and untapped mineral resources such s lie, uranium and gold. Other potentialities included many pre-historic sites and tours attraction scenery.
And ever since Raila Odinga left the region, the rumor that is spreading like bush-fire is that Cyprian Otieno Awitiis the man to beat,
Please find attachment of various documents that appertain to One Kenya Network Team (ONET) that is operating in the form of a Lobby group for ODM Party and the Rt Hon Raila’s Presidency. ONET is a nationwide initiative with its Head-office in Nairobi. As part of its devolution arrangement, it created the Western Kenya Region with its offices in Kisumu to co-ordintate activities in 19 Counties. We recognize you as an interested aspirant in Kisumu County yet ONET is open to working together with all aspirants who are interested for a common objective. In this respect we would be very pleased to have a face to face chart with you for detailed sharing of the concept and possibly identifying opportunities for working together.
I remain looking forward to your positive response.
Wake up people……..wake up…….Voter suppression and luring old and seniors (talk radio and landline phone calls to seniors, lying and twisting Obamas’ Medicare and Medicaid to lure votes) may be the game changer for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to win the election……there are advance plan for last minute victory for GOPs Mitt/Ryan tickets………Looks like they are not ready to give up and by hooks or crooks Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan must do their things for the interest of Corporate Business Special Interest who are extremely desparate to take the Government to serve their selfish and greed.
Very very sad indeed…….
For America to move forward in a progressive manner where all have an opportunity to play by the same rule and improve lives and survival, bi-partisan good leadership must replace the Obstructionist with leaders who keep blocking facilitation of Bills for serving and progressing public needs and interests to move forward.
Electing good people is the answer we must all engage for peace and unity and for the sake of good for all………..
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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The ED Show – Paul Ryan gets booed at AARP convention
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 21, 2012
Rep. Paul Ryan talked Medicare at the AARP Convention in New Orleans, but the crowd wasn’t receptive to his ideas. Ed Schultz talks to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., about the Ryan speech and more.
THE LAST WORD w. LAWRENCE O’DONNELL (September 20, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtQ4m_i1j0
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Lala MAN
No description available.
The ED Show – Breaking down Romney’s tax returns
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 21, 2012
Mitt Romney chose to release his 2011 tax returns today, along with a “summary” of his taxes from the past 20 Years. Romney used a few tricks to fool around with his rates, and ended up paying way more taxes than he should have. David Cay Johnston joins Ed Schultz to break down the numbers.
The sense of entitlement help by the rich makes me sick.?
ZombieWombles4 hours ago
Fucker paying low taxes yet benefits from the roads, power? lines and system my ancestors built.
Pay your share filthy pig!
syntaxed29 hours ago
Rachel Maddow – Romney plays tax games with 2011 return
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 21, 2012
Rachel Maddow notices that Mitt Romney paid more in taxes in 2011 than was legally required (an act that should disqualify him from the presidency according to his own standard), and explains why Romney effectively picked his own tax rate for political reasons, having spent his whole life mastering tax avoidance.
Martin Bashir – Boos for Ryan’s AARP appearance, Romney’s tax returns
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 21, 2012
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., joins Martin Bashir to discuss why seniors booed Paul Ryan and his talk of “vouchers” at today’s AARP convention, and whether Romney’s release of his 2011 tax return only ramps up talk of fixing America’s tax code.
Martin Bashir: Mitt Romney Has The Heart of a Serial Hypocrite
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by politicalarticles
Stench of a Losing Campaign: ReTHUGliLOONs Begin To Turn on Rom-BOT Romney: http://www.politicalarticles.net/blog/2012/09/21/stench-of-a-losing-campaign-…
Martin Bashir Exposes Republican Joe Walsh – Owes Back Child Support
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC7WWV1VVJs
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Don Kihot
Martin Bashir Exposes Republican Joe Walsh – Owes Back Child Support
Rachel Maddow – Americans care about taking care of veterans
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 21, 2012
Rachel Maddow shows how the disproportionate online reaction to the story of Republicans defeating the veterans’ jobs bill should show members of the media that the story is worth amplifying.
The ED Show – Undercover video sheds new light on Romney’s crisis reaction
Published on Sep 19, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 19, 2012
A donor in that undercover fundraising tape asked Mitt Romney how he would show American strength if he were faced with a situation like Reagan’s Iran Hostage crisis. Romney answers candidly that he would “take advantage of the opportunity”. Ed Schultz talks with Jon Soltz, Chairman of votevets.org, and Sam Stein, political reporter for the Huffington Post.
The ED Show – Romney’s real view of workers
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
The Romney campaign is out with a misleading new commercial on the coal industry. Ed Schultz sets the record straight on the ad and takes a deeper look into Mitt Romney’s view on workers by looking at yet another clip from the “47 percent” video. Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen weighs in
Rachel Maddow – ‘Dead voters’ exposed as phantom scandal
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
Veronica Degraffenreid, elections liaison for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, talks with Rachel Maddow about the burden on the election boards in her state to address the frivolous claims of dead voters on the rolls by a tea party group called the Voter Integrity Project.
Martin Bashir – Ryan helps GOP farm for gridlock in return to Capitol
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., joins Martin Bashir to discuss Paul Ryan’s two-fold mission in his return to the Capitol; press a false attack about President Obama removing welfare work requirements and help rally House members around a losing ticket.
Martin Bashir – Romney fumbles delivery of 1998 ‘redistribution’ attack on Obama
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
MSNBC analysts Jonathan Alter, Matt Miller and Michael Eric Dyson debate whether the Romney campaign is reaching into the bottom of the ammo bag with a 1998-era attack about President Obama being in favor of “redistribution” — an attack that pales in comparison to Romney’s “47%” video.
Martin Bashir – Romney, Ryan home states may vote Obama
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams and Lehigh University’s Dr. James Peterson pick apart a slew of new polls — nearly all bad for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan — and discuss why conservatives are suffering buyer’s remorse in what was supposed to be a “can’t-miss” election.
Rachel Maddow – Republicans kill veterans’ jobs bill
Published on Sep 19, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 19, 2012
Patrick Murphy, former U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania and Iraq war veteran, talks with Rachel Maddow about what kind of men Senators John Boozman, Mike Johanns, Richard Burr and Pat Toomey must be to turn their backs on U.S. veterans and kill a bill design to help them – a bill that is not only bipartisan, but which these four senators helped write
The ED Show – Obama hits Romney on 47% while Republicans flee
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
On the fourth day of Mitt Romney’s 47% comment controversy, Republicans continued to distance themselves from Romney, while President Obama stayed on the offensive. The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman joins Ed Schultz to analyze the damage done to the Romney campaign.
Rachel Maddow – Romney’s ‘47%’ remarks more blunt statement than misstatement
Published on Sep 19, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 18, 2012
Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor of “Dan Rather Reports” on AXS TV, talks with Rachel Maddow about new revelations in the undercover Mitt Romney fundraiser videos and the truth revealed in Romney’s remarks – that he doesn’t know what a dirty bomb is, and he thinks the middle and lower classes should pay higher taxes.
Martin Bashir – Romney doubles down on ‘47%’ amid conservative jitters
Published on Sep 19, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 19, 2012
Mother Jones’ David Corn, MSNBC analyst Richard Wolffe, and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum debate why Mitt Romney is choosing to own his “47%” remarks, and why many Republicans are distancing themselves from Romney.
Martin Bashir – No apologies from Romney for 47% comment
Published on Sep 18, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 18, 2012
MSNBC’s Krystal Ball, The Grio’s Perry Bacon and Democratic strategist debate why Mitt Romney refuses to admit that his “47%” comment was wrong, and how his comments in front of donors may confirm some voters’ opinions of Romney.
Lawrence O’Donnell – The Truth – MSNBC
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by daemperialist
MSNBC, POLITICS, OBAMA, NEWS, LAWRENCE O’DONNELL
The ED Show – Brown and Warren debate starts with cheap shot
Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 20, 2012
Sen. Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren had their first debate for Brown’s U.S. senate seat in Massachusetts. Boston City Councilor Felix Arroyo joins Ed Schultz to discuss the substance of the debate.
THE LAST WORD w. LAWRENCE O’DONNELL (September 17, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaE3MZ1ueyc
Published on Sep 18, 2012 by Lala MAN
No description available.
Wow. Way to go Romney. Next, you will make fun of Americans? that have just one underwear.
vincedeporter3 days ago
Martin Bashir – Romney campaign now with 47% more hole to dig out from
Published on Sep 18, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 18, 2012
MSNBC’s Jonathan Alter, The Hill’s Karen Finney and Lehigh University’s Dr. James Peterson join Martin Bashir to debate how Mitt Romney can dig himself out of a whole after his comments on “47%” of America — and why the election may now get a lot uglier.
The ED Show – Secret recording catches Romney’s comments about Obama supporters
Published on Sep 17, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 17, 2012
A secret recording from a fundraiser obtained by Mother Jones catches Mitt Romney saying “shocking things” about 47 percent of the electorate. Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne discuss the tape with Ed Schultz.
I think Mitt also forgets about the 280 major U.S. corporations who paid no Federal? Income Tax between 2008 and 2010 with another 30 actually getting a refund on billions of dollars of net profits. When you’re a millionaire it’s a “tax cut for job creators”. When you’re not a millionaire it’s “welfare” and a “hand-out” and a “entitlement”.
racerx9963 days ago 5
How Many times is Romney going to shoot himself in that silver foot of his? Seriously! Cameras are everywhere nowadays. Thankfully? enough this was recorded before the election so people can see what he really is like when he thinks he can be himself.
ajsanime3 days ago 2
I think Mitt Romney’s chances of President i think maybe? sinking like the Titanic.
TitanicBismarck19871 day ago
The ED Show – Romney campaign struggling with strategy
Published on Sep 17, 2012
Sept 17, 2012
The Romney campaign is in disarray, and a new article reports that the campaign in suffering from infighting and other issues. Democratic
Martin Bashir – Team Romney infighting as campaign hits ‘reset’ button
Published on Sep 17, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 17, 2012
CNBC’s John Harwood, Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page and The Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox discuss the new Politico report detailing dysfunction and infighting in Mitt Romney’s campaign. then debate why the newly “reset” Romney campaign looks the same as the old Romney campaign.
Martin Bashir – Why Romney’s errors are symptomatic of a lack of policy details
Published on Sep 17, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 17, 2012
MSNBC host Steve Kornacki, The Hill’s Karen Finney and MSNBC contributor Maria Teresa Kumar dig into the “Saturday Night Live” take on Mitt Romney; why Mitt Romney’s many unforced errors are a symptom of him trying to avoid giving detailed policy speeches.
Rachel Maddow On Why Republicans Are Out To Destroy Unions
Published on Sep 16, 2012 by HipsterBlood
Why union-busting helps Republicans, President Eisenhower on unions, what unions have given you.
Rachel Maddow – Paul Ryan shares billing with ‘former terrorist’ at fringe conference
Published on Sep 15, 2012 by Licentiathe8th
Sept 14, 2012
Rachel Maddow reports on how misunderstanding and wild conspiracy theories are fomenting violent public outbursts across the Middle East, and notes that Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is scheduled to speak at a conference featuring right wing conspiracy theorists and is billed alongside a self-described “former terrorist.”
Rachel Maddow on Harold Simmons
Published on Apr 8, 2012 by TheCrossroads2012
Harold Simmons has given Millions of dollars to GOP candidates so that he can continue to dump nuclear waste into an aquifer that supplies 1/3 of the water that irrigates land in America.
Americans are screwed. ?
Rodney925 months ago
Congress exits Washington to hit campaign trail
By ANDREW TAYLOR | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The most partisan, least productive Congress in memory has skipped out of Washington for the campaign trail.
The Senate shuttered the Capitol soon after sending President Barak Obama stopgap spending legislation that will make sure the government won’t shut down on Oct. 1. It passed early Saturday morning by a 62-30 vote.
Left behind for a postelection session is a pile of unfinished business on the budget and taxes, farm policy and legislation to save the Postal Service from insolvency.
The GOP-controlled House had beat its retreat Friday morning after taking one last, futile slap at Obama — passing a bill entitled the “Stop the War on Coal Act.” The measure, dead on arrival in the Senate, was aimed at boosting the coal industry in its battle against new environmental regulations while hurting Obama’s political prospects in coal states like Ohio and Virginia.
The Democratic-controlled Senate’s middle-of-the-night session came after a spitting match between Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the chamber’s Republicans over Reid’s insistence on advancing legislation by Sen. Jon Tester of Montana to boost access to public lands for hunting and fishing. Tester is perhaps the Senate’s most endangered Democrat and Republicans protested that he was being given special treatment in a nakedly political move to boost his reelection chances. The measure eventually cleared a procedural hurdle on a sweeping 84-7 vote.
The votes came at midnight to give senators who had scattered from Washington time to return. Democrat Claire McCaskill was in Missouri Friday for a debate, while Michael Bennet, D-Colo., had been in the southwest portion of his state to attend a ceremony celebrating the new Chimney Rock National Monument. Tea party star Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was venting his frustrations with American Airlines on Twitter.
The only must-do item on the get-out-of-Dodge agenda was a six-month spending measure to fulfill the bare minimum of Congress’ responsibilities by keeping the government running after the current budget year ends on Sept. 30.
The spending measure permits spending on agency operating budgets at levels agreed to under last summer’s hard-fought budget and debt deal between Obama and Capitol Hill Republicans. That’s 0.6 percent increase from current spending rates, which represents a defeat for House Republicans, who had sought to cut about 2 percent below the budget deal and shift $8 billion from domestic programs to the Pentagon.
Reid also relented to a monthslong demand by tea party Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for a vote on suspending foreign aid to the governments of Libya, Egypt and Pakistan. Paul only got 10 votes. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., however, won sweeping approval of a nonbinding resolution supporting steps to make sure Iran doesn’t develop a nuclear weapon.
It’s the earliest pre-election exit by Congress from Washington since 1960, though lawmakers will return in November after the election to deal with its stack of unfinished work.
The approval rating for the current Congress in a Gallup poll earlier this month sank to just 13 percent, the lowest ever for an election year. The GOP-controlled House and Democratic Senate managed to come together with Obama to enact just 173 new laws. More are coming after the election, but the current tally is roughly half the output of a typical Congress.
Even so, political pundits say Republicans are strong favorites to keep the House while Democratic chances of keeping the Senate are on the upswing with Obama’s rise in the polls.
The exit from Washington leaves the bulk of Congress’ agenda for a postelection session in which it’s hoped lawmakers will be liberated from the election-year paralysis that has ground Capitol Hill to a near halt.
Topping the lame-duck agenda was dealing with the so-called fiscal cliff, which combines the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts on Dec. 31 and more than $100 billion in indiscriminate, across-the-board spending cuts set to strike at the same time as punishment for the failure of last year’s deficit “supercommittee” to strike a deal.
Also left in limbo is the farm bill, stalled in the House due to opposition from conservative Republicans who think it doesn’t cut farm subsidies and food stamps enough and Democrats who think its food stamp cuts are too harsh.
The current farm act expires on Sept. 30 but the lapse won’t have much practical effect in the near term. Still, it’s a political black eye for Republicans, especially those from farm states like North Dakota and Iowa.
The lack of productivity of the 112th Congress was the result of divided government and bitter partisanship. Die-hard GOP conservatives eager to roll back Obama’s agenda barreled headlong into an official Washington still largely controlled by Democrats — and oftentimes seemed to limit the options of their own leadership with their intransigence. The looming presidential and congressional elections caused top leaders in both parties to play it safe and stick to party positions.
The result: Congress’ major accomplishments tended to be legislation that mostly extended current policies, like a highway bill passed earlier this year and bills demanded by Obama to renew a 2 percentage point payroll tax cuts and extend student loan subsidies.
Even this Congress’ signature accomplishment — a budget and debt deal enacted last summer to cut $2.1 trillion from the budget over 10 years — punted most of its difficult decisions to the future by tasking the supercommittee with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings.
And, after the supercommittee cratered, House Republicans walked away from the budget deal by pressing for further cuts to domestic appropriations and reversing some on the pact’s Pentagon cuts.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Reid worked closely with the White House to use the Senate schedule for Obama’s political advantage, repeatedly forcing votes on closing tax breaks for oil companies and raising taxes on upper bracket earners.
But Reid failed to schedule floor debates on any of the 12 annual appropriations bills and the Democratic-led chamber, for the third year in a row, failed to pass a budget.
Republicans also point to almost 40 items of House-passed jobs-related legislation sitting stalled in the Senate.
“They haven’t passed a budget in more than three years. They have no plan to save Medicare, no plan to stop all the tax hikes, and no plan to replace the sequester,” Boehner said. “This isn’t leadership. It is negligence.”
Democrats defending the Senate point out that the balky chamber managed several bills that the House would not, including a renewal of farm programs and legislation to overhaul the Postal Service and give it an infusion of cash to stave off insolvency.
“The reality is for as closely as divided as this Senate is, we passed a large number of bipartisan bills this year, very important bills, but as you all know, it takes two chambers to pass a law,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “On the other side, too many of the Congress members, particularly the tea party folks, think compromise is a dirty word.”
Looking to blunt relentless Democratic attacks, Mitt Romney on Friday released his 2011 tax return, a summary of his effective tax rates for the past two decades and, for good measure, two doctor’s notes attesting to the good physical health of the candidate and his running mate, Paul Ryan.
The tax return was released at 3 p.m. ET on the website www.mittromney.com/disclosure. Ahead of the release, the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign released a blog post summarizing the document.
Releasing information on a Friday afternoon is traditionally a way to reduce the amount of media exposure.
The move fulfills a promise Romney made earlier in the 2012 presidential campaign. But it was unlikely to quiet Democratic criticisms that Romney has failed to live up to a standard set by his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 1968.
The Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 of mostly investment income for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent. (The Obamas paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent in 2011, a lower rate than the president’s secretary, according to the White House.)
Romney, who is thought to have a personal fortune in the neighborhood of $250 million, gave $4,020,772 to charity, 30 percent of their income. (The Obamas gave 21.8 percent of their income to charity.)
The blog post, written by the manager of Romney’s blind trust since 2003, R. Bradford Malt, said the Romneys had filed their 2011 tax return with the IRS Friday morning. It also indicated that the Romneys’ tax preparer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, would provide a letter summarizing the tax rates that the Romneys paid from 1990 to 2009.
The Romneys paid an average annual effective federal tax rate of 20.2 percent, with the lowest rate coming in at 13.66 percent. Over that same stretch of time, they gave an average of 13.45 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity.
And Romney paid a far lower rate than the top 35 percent tax rate levied on the largest salaries because most of his income came from investments, which are taxed at far lower rates.
“During the 20-year period covered by the PWC letter, Gov. and Mrs. Romney paid 100 percent of the taxes that they owed,” the blog post read.
Democrats led by the Obama campaign have repeatedly hit Romney over his refusal to disclose his tax returns—a fight that has helped to keep Romney’s vast wealth in the media spotlight at a time when the president is trying to paint him as an out-of-touch millionaire bent on helping the wealthy.
Romney paid a price—literally—for saying that he paid at least 13 percent in federal income taxes over the past decade. He and his wife did not take the full deductions to which they were entitled for their charitable giving.
“The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year,” Malt wrote. “The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor’s statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.”
Team Obama showed no sign of letting up in its attacks, with deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter saying in a statement that Romney paid a lower tax rate than some middle-class families “because of a set of complex loopholes and tax shelters only available to those at the top.”
Cutter charged that the 2011 return “continues to mask Romney’s true wealth and income from Bain Capital, leaving the American people in the dark about critical details about his finances.”
“Why does Mitt Romney not just release the full returns, instead of the bare summary he has provided of the last 20 years, so voters can make their own judgments about Mitt Romney’s finances?” Cutter asked.
Romney rips Obama on ‘can’t change Washington’
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News
White House Corresponden
The Ticket –
Mitt Romney pounded President Barack Obama for saying, “You can’t change Washington from the inside” at a rally in the sweltering Sarasota heat on Thursday. And he proudly promised Florida voters that he would “get the job done” where the Democrat did not.
“We face a Washington that’s broken, that can’t get the job done,” the former Massachusetts governor told some 4,600 supporters. “The president today threw in the white flag of surrender again. He said he can’t change Washington from the inside. He can only change it from outside.
“Well, we’re going to give him that chance in November! He’s going outside!” Romney said to cheers from the crowd. “I can change Washington, I will change Washington! We’ll get the job done from the inside! Republicans and Democrats will come together!”
Romney was riffing on a comment Obama made Thursday at one of two town hall-style events hosted by Spanish-language network Univision at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. (Romney was at the network’s first one, held on Wednesday.)
At the forum, Obama had said, “I think that I’ve learned some lessons over the last four years. And the most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside—you can only change it from the outside. That’s how I got elected, and that’s how the big accomplishments, like health care, got done. … We mobilized the American people to speak out. That’s how we were able to cut taxes for middle-class families.
“So something that I’d really like to concentrate on in my second term,” the president continued, “is being in a much more constant conversation with the American people so that they can put pressure on Congress to help move some of these issues forward.”
Romney painted the comment not as a testament to grass-roots activism, but as a betrayal of the “Hope and Change” vision and “Yes We Can” slogan from Obama’s history-making 2008 run for the White House.
“His slogan was ‘Yes We Can,'” said Romney. “His slogan now is ‘No I Can’t.’ He went from the president of change to the president who can’t get change.
“The president of the United States says he can’t change Washington from the inside,” continued Romney, who repeated that line more than once during the rally. “Isn’t that amazing? No wonder he’s had such a hard time over these last four years.”
Lis Smith, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, said in a release that Romney is “once again” taking the president’s words out of context. “What the president said today is no different than what he has been saying for many years—that change comes from outside Washington, not inside,” said Smith. “Mitt Romney apparently doesn’t believe that change comes from the American people. Maybe that’s because he has written off half the country in this election.”
Obama: Romney hasn’t ‘gotten around a lot’
By KEN THOMAS | Associated Press – Thu, Sep 20, 2012
MIAMI (AP) — President Barack Obama said rival Mitt Romney hasn’t “gotten around a lot” if he believes that 47 percent of Americans consider themselves victims and entitled to government help. Addressing a large Latino television audience Thursday, the president also said his “biggest failure” was an inability to win an overhaul of the immigration system.
In an interview with Spanish language channel Univision, Obama says the country has gone through a challenging time and that people “want a hand up and not a handout.”
In suggesting his GOP rival was out of touch, Obama was reacting to secretly taped remarks by Romney in which the Republican declared that the 47 percent of voters who support Obama represent Americans who don’t pay income taxes and “who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them.”
Obama said Americans pay payroll taxes, gas taxes and state and sales taxes. He noted that those who don’t pay income taxes include workers who don’t make enough money to qualify, older Americans and students.
“When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government, my thinking is maybe you haven’t gotten around a lot,” Obama said.
The forum gave Obama a rebuttal of sorts. Romney spoke Wednesday at the Univision forum, where he said his campaign was about “the 100 percent in America.”
The president faced tough questions on why he hadn’t accomplished comprehensive immigration reform, an important issue for Hispanic voters. Jorge Ramos, one of the moderators, put it bluntly: “You promised that and a promise is a promise and with all due respect, you didn’t keep that promise.”
Obama said he accepted responsibility but that he faced an economy “on the verge of collapse” in his first year and blamed Republicans for abandoning support for comprehensive immigration reform. He said there was “the thinking that the president is somebody who is all-powerful and can get everything done.”
Obama said he only leads the executive branch. “We have to have cooperation from all these sources to get something done,” he said.
“What I confess I did not expect, and so I’m happy to take responsibility for being naive here, is that Republicans who had previously supported comprehensive immigration reform, my opponent in 2008 who had been a champion of it and who attended these meetings, suddenly would walk away,” he said. “That’s what I did not anticipate.”
Asked later in the interview to name his biggest failure, Obama cited a lack of comprehensive immigration reform, but added: “It’s not for a lack of trying or desire.”
Obama: GOP walked away from immigration overhaul
By KEN THOMAS | Associated Press – Thu, Sep 20, 2012
MIAMI (AP) — President Barack Obama is telling a large Latino television audience that Republicans walked away from comprehensive immigration overhaul and says he has not wavered in his support for changes in immigration law.
In an interview with the Spanish language channel Univision, Obama said he didn’t offer an immigration reform package because he had to deal with the financial crisis. But he said he shouldn’t be blamed because he is not “all powerful” and wouldn’t have been able to win the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to succeed.
He pointed to administrative efforts he has taken to permit some young people who came to the United States illegally to avoid deportation
Mitt Romney fact check: Is he actually against redistribution?
Mitt Romney is treating ‘redistribution’ like a dirty word. But while he might like it less than Democrats do, Romney clearly believes in redistribution, too.
By Liz Marlantes | Christian Science Monitor – 16 hrs ago
Scrambling to change the subject from his now infamous remarks calling 47 percent of the population “victims,” Mitt Romney has jumped on a newly uncovered (though actually very old) tape of then-Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama saying he believes in “redistribution” of wealth. Excerpts from the Obama tape first ran Wednesday on The Drudge Report – and at a fundraiser Wednesday in Atlanta, Mr. Romney went all-in on the attack:
“There are some who believe that if you simply take from some and give to others then we’ll all be better off. It’s known as redistribution. It’s never been a characteristic of America. There’s a tape that came out just a couple of days ago where the president said yes he believes in redistribution. I don’t. I believe the way to lift people and help people have higher incomes is not to take from some and give to others but to create wealth for all.”
Let’s put aside the fact that the Obama tape is 14 years old – though, as The New Republic’s Timothy Noah points out, back then Romney was “still pro-choice, still pro-gun control, still pro-stem cell research, and still in favor of gays serving openly in the military.”
RECOMMENDED: Mitt Romney gaffes: 11 times the button-down candidate should have buttoned up
The real reason Romney’s attack is likely to be a flop is that the president’s remarks – when examined in full – aren’t likely to be seen by most Americans as particularly controversial. In fact, it’s clear that Romney himself essentially agrees with much of what Mr. Obama said.
Here’s the complete text of Obama’s comments (as opposed to the shortened clip circulated by Republicans), which was tracked down by NBC News:
“I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution – because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level – to make sure that everybody’s got a shot. How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities?”
First off, Obama’s statements about decentralizing delivery systems and fostering competition sound practically Republican (he was specifically criticizing the inefficiency of Chicago public housing and public schools). In context, he’s actually arguing for a more streamlined system of government that employs free-market efficiencies and makes redistribution more effective – and by implication, more economical.
More to the point, however: In his attacks, Romney is treating “redistribution” in general as a dirty word – “He believes in redistribution. I don’t” – when, in fact, it’s abundantly clear that Romney, too, supports redistribution, “at least at a certain level” (to use Obama’s own phrasing).
What would Romney call it when the government takes in tax dollars and uses them to pay for things like health care for poor folks? Is he saying he would eliminate Medicaid? We think not. Likewise, although Romney would tax the rich at a lower rate than Obama, his tax plan is still progressive.
As The New York Times’s David Firestone wrote Wednesday: “The government has long redistributed wealth, and … the country expects it to do so. That’s the point of a progressive income tax, which has been in effect for nearly a century…. The progressive tax remains so popular that Mr. Romney has promised to keep it, and he also insists he doesn’t plan to eliminate the safety net.”
Or as CNN’s Erin Burnett put it: “Mitt Romney, no matter what words he wants to use or what America he says he wants to believe in, believes in a progressive taxation system…. That is redistribution.”
Obviously, the real question – and a very legitimate one – is, how much redistribution is fair and best for society? In general, Democrats tend to want a little more, and Republicans tend to want a little less. But for Romney to pretend to be opposed to the entire concept of redistribution is totally untrue, based purely on what he himself says he would do as president.
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Pata nafasi mpya za Kazi www.kazibongo.blogspot.com
Blogu ya Habari na Picha www.patahabari.blogspot.com
In 2008, 6 million people didn’t vote because they missed a deadline or didn’t know how to register.1 With voter registration deadlines coming up in many states, let’s make sure those voices get heard in 2012.
Hundreds of civic groups, like the League of Women Voters and Voto Latino, have organized hundreds of events on Tuesday, September 25—National Voter Registration Day. All over the country, volunteers and celebrities will hit the streets for a single day of coordinated outreach to register voters.
Our allies are planning hundreds of simple and fun events. The more people who participate, the more people we’ll actually register. Can you sign up to help register voters and raise awareness on Tuesday?
Click here to RSVP for a National Voter Registration Day event near Dayton.
With voting rights under attack, it’s more important than ever to get registered to vote. By joining together on the same day, integrating field and online technology, we’ll help make sure voters know how, when, and where they can register to vote.
On Tuesday, we’ll register voters where they work, travel, and play—at main transportation hubs, shopping malls, concerts, and sporting events. We’re making it as easy as possible to make sure everyone has the information they need to vote this November.
There’s a National Voter Registration event near you. Can you stop by and help register voters and promote awareness?
Thanks for all you do.
–Anna, Julia, Eric, Emily, and the rest of the team
Source:
1. FAQs page, National Voter Registration Day, accessed September 21, 2012
http://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/faqs
– – – – – – – – – – –
Tuesday, Sept. 25, is National Voter Registration Day! Hundreds of groups are joining together to get people registered and promote democracy. To find and RSVP for an event near you, click here:
STARTLING revelation has surfaced that Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta’s TNA party might have pated with colossal amount of money in excess of Kshs 5 million in the just concluded Ndhiwa by-election campaign, but shocking harvested only paltry votes of 216.
Other sources disclosed that when Kenyatta visited Ndhiwa a week earlier to drum up support for his party candidate Mrs Rumo before the poll date, those in is entourage were treated to an executive luncheon at the luxury and posh Ndhiwa Village Resort, which is owned by the former MP for the area the late Joshua Orwa Ojode.
Mr Kenyatta who is known to have been a close of friend of the late Ojode took his supporters national and local party officials to the hotel for lunch. His guests are sad to have incurred close to Kshs 65,000 in hotel bill, which Kenyatta I said to have paid promptly, but the hotel management has yet to receive any money. This was has been confirmed by Hesbon Omolo the party coordinator in Nyanza.
The campaign money which was made available for the by-election campaign logistics has caused a lot of jittery among the party national and local officials. Omolo confirmed of an incident when the group went to Kisumu Airport to see Kenyatta off to Nairobi.
Omolo, reported he shoved around by goons and almost got assaulted at the VIP lounge while he was briefing Mr Kenyatta about his trip to Nyanza.
He was shoved around by hired goons were acting on the advice and instruction of an unnamed one of the TNA national officials, who had his roots in Nyanza and was only rescued by the Embakassi MP Ferdinand Waititu who had accompanied Kenyatta during successful campaign tour of Ndhiwa.
On Tuesday this week the unpaid TNA’s polls agents had ganged up and threatened to lynch the candidates blaming them for having received the campaign money, but declined to disburse it to them.
The candidates travelled to Kismu City and met Hesbon Omolo who hurriedly arranged for a press conference so that they could explain the position. The aborted press conference was called at the Public Servant’s Club in the posh Milimani estate within Kisumu City.
But before the assembled journalists could take the notes, hired political goons suspected to have been hired by one of the national party official stormed the venue. Assembled journalists took to their heels and scampered in all direction for their safety while the goons menacingly hurled insults to Hesbon Omolo. The latter and the defeated candidates drove towards the Kisumu Police Station, with the goons in hot pursuit on boda boda motorbikes. Omolo and the candidates recorded statements.
An otherwise ugly situation was only averted after the timely intervention by he proprietor of the Club ho warned the marauding youths that he could have them arrested if they would dare to assault any of his guests and customers.
On Wednesday evening Mrs Debra Onyango Oloo, the wife of Onyango Oloo, the TNA’s Secretary General who drove a four-wheel Nissan double cabin van full of goons to the Ofafa Memorial Hall bar in Kisumu City where Hesbon Omolo and some friends were taking freshmen’s. The goons descended on Omolo with kicks and crude weapons. Omolo who sustained injuries on is left eye and reportedly suffered internal injuries following the beating. However, the hostilities between the two groups within Nyanza branch of the TNA continued unabated forcing both sides to record statements with the police.
By the time of writing this report no arrest was made by the police.of any member of the goons who had assaulted Hesbon Omolo at the Ofafa Hal and those who had violently disrupted the press conference at the Public Servants Club the previous day.
In the civic by-elections all held in the larger Kasipul-Kabondo, the TNA performed better than they did in the Ndhiwa bv-election where the party had harvested a paltry number of 216 votes which even fell short of the number of its 292 polls agents the part had hired to man its polling stations. In Wire / Migwa Ward in Kasipul, the NA candidate garnered 980 votes, while in Wang’chieng Ward, the TNA’s candidate polled 350 votes, the figure which was much better than what the party harvested in the Ndhiwa parliamentary by-elections.
Insiders confided to us tat TNA boss Kenyatta who is also the party’s presidential candidate seemed to have entrusted the campaign resources with some power brokers and political conmen who scrambled for the money and did no perform any meaningful campaign work for the party. Pundits sad they had expected Kenyatta’s party to perform better due to its enormous resources and campaign logistics it had ad put In place. The money is said to have evaporated and got into the pockets of individuals political conmen.
In every campaign, there is a turning point, and Mitt Romney’s 47% speech may be it.
A hidden camera caught Mitt Romney telling his rich donors that nearly half our country—47% of Americans—are freeloaders mooching off the government1:
“My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Not surprisingly, people everywhere are outraged and offended. That means we now have a HUGE opportunity this week to persuade voters who are still on the fence that Romney is the wrong choice for president. There’s no shortcut—we need to get as many people as we can in swing states like Ohio out talking to voters about Romney’s comments right away.
MoveOn members are volunteering with our partner Workers’ Voice Ohio
I do want to help.
https://pol.moveon.org/2012c/donate/nine_points.html?id=52198-21095459-gpoGSgx&t=9
Romney’s 47% speech alone won’t amount to a turning point in the campaign unless we seize this opportunity. Our strategy is to use volunteer power to show swing voters that Romney’s comment about the 47% wasn’t a gaffe—it was clear evidence of how Republicans think about the American people and why their policies favor the rich, not anyone else.
We’ve joined forces with AFL-CIO and other partners to create the single largest independent get-out-the-vote program in the country. At 19 million members strong, together we’re talking with voters one-on-one. Decades of political science research shows that talking face-to-face with voters is dramatically more effective than anything else.
And experts say that right now, after the conventions are over, is when most voters are tuned in and making up their minds. This week is probably the best time to persuade voters in Ohio by talking about Mitt’s disdain for anyone who’s not a member of his mega-millionaire club.
Thanks for all you do.
–Elena, Julia, Garlin, Stefanie, and the rest of the team
Source:
1. “SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters,” Mother Jones, September 17, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280924&id=52198-21095459-gpoGSgx&t=10
BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
From: People For Peace
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012
The fact that elections in Kenya are held along ethnic and regional lines, it will be too early to jump into conclusions that by National Alliance (TNA) winning two of the three parliamentary seats in Monday’s by-elections as the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) retained Ndhiwa in a landslide win Uhuru may win 2013 presidential election.
[image]Uhuru and Raila in previous function/ File photo
There was no doubt that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta’s TNA would win the Kangema and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s ODM party would win Ndhiwa. It was also obvious that Kenyatta’s TNA would win Kajiado North because TNA is just PNU reloaded.
In Kangema, TNA’s Tiras Ngahu had 13,762 votes ahead of United Democratic Forum’s Simon Mwangi with 2,981 and Saba Saba Asili’s Muturi Kigano with 2,801, after results from all the 47 polling stations were announced.
In Kajiado North Mr Moses ole Sakuda of TNA led with 25,569 votes followed by Mr Peter ole Mositet of ODM with 13,519 votes. PNU’s Antony Keen was third with 2,048 votes.
In Ndhiwa, ODM’s Agustino Neto led with 21,565 votes followed by Kanu’s Tom Onyango with 2,291 votes. TNA’s Rosemary Rumo won with 216 votes. Deputy Prime Minsiter Musalia Mudavadi’s UDF party did not win any of the seats, including civic.
Kajiado North remained vacant following the death of Professor George Saitoti after a horrific police helicopter crash on Sunday 10th June in Kibiku forest in Ngong. He perished together with his internal security minister Orwa Ojode and four others who include two pilots and two bodyguards.
The media’s favourite political analyst, Mutahi Ngunyi, sensationally claimed that Prof. George Saitoti might have been assassinated. Mutahi was speaking on Jeff Koinange’s Capital Talk in June. The famous political analyst said that assassination was number one on the list of what might have killed the internal security minister, his deputy, their bodyguards and two pilots.
Mutahi said that succession politics in Kenya have always attracted political assassinations, pointing out the assassinations of Tom Mboya and JM Kariuki and claimed that Saitoti’s death might have been similar to the two only that it was well executed. He added that Orwa Ojode was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ruling out political mileage as a reason for assassinating the professor, Mutahi took on drug barons. He said that the drug barons may have been unhappy with Saitoti and the way he refused to bend to their knees- Source: Nairobi Wire.
[image]Mutahi Ngunyi during Capital Talk with K24 host Jeff Koinange-June 16, 2012. He claimed Saitoti was assassinated/ File
Even though opinion polls have all the times put Raila as the frontrunner to be the 4th president of Kenya, this is not going to be an easy task for him either. Uhuru is a very rich man and can easily use his resources to win his way to State House.
On the other hand, Raila is preferred by the vast majority of Kenyan people because they see him as a reformer who has continuously propagated for democracy and good governance. He did not only dare Moi when no one could open his mouth but was also once accused of contemplating to overthrow his government which resulted in him being sent to jail for years.
He is also liked because he was very instrumental in bringing to an end the KANU government which Kenyans have suffered under for decades and his force behind the election of kibaki and NARC government into power in 2002 when he declared the famous kibaki tosha slogan.
He is also seen as the man behind the passing of the new constitution which promises many good things for the ordinary Kenyans, especially now that some of its effect can be seen on a mere security guard getting her right and prominent government officials can be put into jail over corruption.
According to poll opinion, it is only Raila’s ODM party which has more national outlook as compared to other political parties. Opinion polls have many times indicated the orange party to be the most popular political party in Kenya and this is a massive boast for Raila’s presidential bid.
Other Kenyans will sympathize with him for his “stolen” victory in 2007. Many Kenyans and particularly Mr. Odinga’s supporters widely believe that he was robbed of victory in 2007, having won the most votes in 6 out of the 8 provinces in Kenya.
Asked why she defended Mwai Kibaki even when it became very clear that he stole the votes from Raila, presidential aspirant, Martha Karua said that just like Raila was defended by those of James Orengo and the ODM pentagon, as an agent of Kibaki she had all the rights to defend him.
[image]Presidential aspirant Martha Karua second right during Cheche Live-June 19, 2012/ caption by Fr Omolo Joachim, AJ-courtesy Citizen TV
Karua who was answering questions during Citizen TV Cheche Live some few minutes a go said if Raila’s votes were stolen then he would have gone to court to refute the claim. Raila refused to go to court because at that time the court was in favour of Kibaki.
Mr Odinga and his supporters were of the view that he had won squarely and fairly and that the government had colluded with the Samuel Kivuitu led defunct electoral commission of Kenya (ECK) to manipulate and rig the elections in favour of the incumbent; Mwai Kibaki.
On the other hand, those who sympathize with Uhuru cannot vote for Raila because they believe he is the one who conspired that he goes to The Hague. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are facing crimes against humanity charges at The Hague based international criminal court (ICC) in the Netherlands.
They are accused of committing the crimes during the violence that followed the disputed presidential election of 2007. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto claim that Raila has engineered their prosecution and tribulations facing them.
Against the background that Ruto and Uhuru have since formed an alliance dubbed G7 bringing together many politicians to ensure Raila does not make it to State House. Some of the political alliances which have come together in support of Uhuru include the Alliance Party of Kenya (APK) party, led by Minister Kiraitu Murungi, the Party of National Unity (PNU), Grand National Union (GNU) and Alliance Party of Kenya (APK), as well as his own party, The National Alliance (TNA).
The coalition agreement at the Nairobi’s Norfolk Hotel on Wednesday, August 8, 2012 was signed by Kenyatta for TNA, Minister Amos Kimunya (PNU), Kiraitu (APK) and Assistant minister Mwangi Kiunjuri of GNU.
The ceremony was also attended by Finance Minister Robinson Njeru Githae, APK chairman Titus Imbui and GEMA’s Dr. Stephen Karau. They resolved and agreed to support the presidential candidature of Uhuru Kenyatta. They also mandated and empowered Uhuru Kenyatta to enter into negotiations with like-minded parties to ensure that the coalition wins the forthcoming General Election.
Apart from GEMA circle, other parties that have shown the interest in Uhuru’s support include Party of Action (POA’s) Raphael Tuju, Wiper Democratic Movement (WDM’s) Kalonzo Musyoka, United Republican Party (URP’s) William Ruto and New Ford Kenya’s Eugene Wamalwa.
Apart from political parties, there are some individuals who political analysts claime to have been hired to work for the downfall of Raila. They include Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi, former Raila’s advisor, Miguna Miguna and Tony Gachoka.
In his memorandum regarding information of the ICC trials, Gachoka who claims to be a Kenyan Investigative Media Personality of over 20 years standing said that between the years 2008-2009 he was the Chief of Protocol in the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya, the Rt. Honourable Eng. Raila Amollo Odinga, having been a political aide of his since 2005.
His duties included running the diary of the Prime Minister for all local and international meetings as well as sitting in on those meetings. During his time working for the Prime Minister, he claims that certain information relevant to the ongoing International Criminal Court trials regarding the Kenya Situation (2007-2008) came into his knowledge.
This information, which he said he can support with documentary evidence in his possession, touches on some of the evidence adduced before the Court and which has been relied on by the office of the Chief Prosecutor.
There are also some political analysts who believe that Uhuru Kenyatta’s recent historic visit to Nyanza could open a new window for power sharing deals between the Luo and the Kikuyu, the claim which Raila’s supporters may not buy.
Uhuru was quoted to have said: “With what I saw in Nyanza, it is evident that things have changed greatly and anything, including possible power sharing deals between Uhuru and Raila is now possible”.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Peaceful world is the greatest heritage
That this generation can give to the generations
To come- All of us have a role.
RESIDENTS of Ndhiwa constituency have proved they were steadfastly in ODM and have confidence in the party leadership contrary misconceptions and faulty impression created by rival parties.
By voting overwhelmingly for the ODM candidate Augustino Neto Oyugi, the electorate in Ndhiwa has displayed their unswerving loyalty to the party leader Raila Odinga.
A prominent politician in Homa-Bay County Hilary Ochieng Alila said this on Tuesday this week while thanking the Ndhiwa voters for their unshaken allegiance and loyalty to the party leadership in general ad to the Prime Minister Raila Odinga in particular.
Alila who stuck with the ODM after abandoning his elder brother Tom Otieno Alia who contested the by election on a KANU ticket and performed dismally .
His action was against the wishes of the entire Alia family in Ndhiwa which had disproved it and unsuccessfully persuaded Tom to pull out of the race.said his brother was only pushed into contesting the by-election by an unnamed senior ODM politician within Homa-Bay County as a ploy to complicate his own ambition for the elective position of Homa-Bay County Senate seat.
But he was glad that the voters have taught those who conspired with aims of undermining his ambition to become the first Senate for the Homa-By County have been shamed by the outcome of the Ndhiwa by-election
Alila said that the ODM success is because or the campaign of its issues based campaign strategy, which yielded the success fruits by producing positive results. “This will now ashame the forces of doom and conspirators who had hatched the plans of dirty politics of intrigues.”It could pave the way to clean campaign during the impending general elections due in Mach next year.
Alila who last Friday had accompany the ODM leader Raila Odinga in the helicopter flight that traversed the full length and width of the expansive Ndhiwa constituency during the last lap of the campaign said he thought his elder brother Tom Alia had no genuine intention of contesting the by-election as such.
He blamed the unnamed politician whom he scathingly criticize for having lured Tom Alila into contesting the by-election so that it could create bad impression which could in turn impacted negatively on the family and appear as if “the Alilas were oppose to Raila Odinga leadership.”
The end results, he said, has proved the family critics due to the mistake of one of them wrong. Politicians in Luo-Nyanza, he added, “should emulate Raila Odinga’s style and system kind of selfishlessness leadership which is devoid of malice, adding that during the ODM “supremo” made ten brief stops and addressed crowds of Wananchi across the constituency on the importance of voting for the ODM candidate, and the message was well received by the Waanchi.
The youthful Nairobi based businessman whose campaign style has hit the Homa-Bay County wit thud reiterated that he is still soldiering on with the campaign to capture the Homa-Bay County Senate seat.
Alila’s last week’s flight in the same “Chopa” with Raila Odinga gave the Ndhiwa voters the impression that this was an endorsement of his [Alila’s} candidature for the Senate seat.
He called upon his rivals for the same seat to conduct her campaign in mature an peaceful manner which is devoid of political intrigues and work hard as a team to ensure the party win all the seats in the region including those of women representative, county Wards, governorship.
He said he pleased and highly impressed by ODM performance in far a field like Eldoret in the Uasin Gishu County despite near insult propagandas directed by some leaders in those region against the ODM.
Alila made reference about his elder brother decision to contest he by-election on a KANU ticket, and disclosed that it was vehemently opposed by the entire family, though it was his democratic rights to do so, still it hurts the Alila family. He thought it could have been wise for Tom to drop out of the race after the ODM primary and utilized his influence in campaigning for the DOM instead of KANU.
Skills for managing business empire is completely different from managing a Government which on the other hand demands integrity with clear judgement authorizing action in spar-of-moment that may call for short notice for resolve and clear-cut direction for action.
Government leadership cannot be run on guess work, flip flopping or in a
gamble…….It is too much of a risk to take…….
With the evidential proof we have seen in Romney’s flip flopping, Mitt is far from getting it together…….
Whats your say people…..!!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
– – – – – – – – – – –
Obama inches ahead in key voter polls
As the clock ticks down to Election Day and the number of undecided voters shrinks, President Obama is gaining over Mitt Romney in key polls. But overall, the race remains way too close to call.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Christian Science Monitor – 14 hrs ago
It’s been a rough week for both President Obama and Mitt Romney,
Mr. Obama has had to deal with anti-US protests around the Muslim world, including the murder of American diplomats in Libya. Mr. Romney took flak from Republicans as well as Democrats for what critics said were intemperate remarks about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, which seemed obviously aimed to gain political advantage at a time when national unity was called for.
Obama has more responsibility than his challenger here – both for what happened in Libya and for how to respond. It could be a defining moment for his re-election bid.
But a snapshot of where things stand in the presidential campaign 51 days before the election should bring some cheer to the White House, at least according to the most recent polls.
Are you more (or less) conservative than Mitt Romney? Take our quiz!
As the Monitor’s Liz Marlantes reported Friday, Obama’s post-convention bounce apparently endures, most significantly in key battleground states.
According to a new set of NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls, Obama is now leading Romney by 7 points in Ohio and 5 points in Florida and Virginia, and the RealClearPolitics polling average right now has Obama up by 4.2 percentage points in Ohio, 1.3 points in Florida, and 0.4 points in Virginia.
A Philadelphia Inquirer poll released Saturday has Obama leading Romney in Pennsylvania, 50 percent to 39 percent, reports Politico.
“Pennsylvania Democrats are more consolidated behind Obama, with 77 percent in favor of Obama and 13 percent in favor of Romney, while Republicans are 18 percent in favor of Obama and 71 percent in favor of Romney,” according to the poll press release. “Following the conventions, Obama’s favorability rating has increased by 3 points, while his unfavorable rating has decreased by 6 points. Opinions of Romney have improved slightly following the conventions, but he still has a net negative personal popularity rating among voters in state, with 46 percent favorable/48 percent unfavorable rating.”
Politico also reports on an internal Republican poll that has Romney behind by 4 points in Ohio, not as bad as his 7-point deficit in the NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls but behind nonetheless.
“The numbers underline Romney’s longstanding problems in Ohio, where he’s taken a beating from Obama’s campaign and liberal groups,” writes Politico’s Jonathan Martin. “But it’s actually a sign of the depth of Romney’s hole in the state that the results were greeted favorably by Republicans. Polling in Ohio before the conventions last month showed Romney with an even larger deficit, closer to double-digits.”
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll of likely voters has Obama widening his advantage to 7 points, a gap that’s been increasing since the Democratic convention. “What that really means is that Obama is in good shape,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.
“Thursday’s online poll also found far more registered voters preferred the incumbent’s policies and approach on taxes (41 percent picked Obama, 30 percent Romney), healthcare (44 percent Obama, 28 percent Romney) and Social Security (39 percent Obama, 27 percent Romney),” Reuters reported. “Asked which of the candidates had a better plan, policy or approach to the war on terrorism, more registered voters again favored Obama: 39 percent to Romney’s 25 percent.” (Note that the poll was taken two days after the attack on the US consulate in Libya.)
One sleeper poll that may have particular importance given the tension between the US and Israel over drawing a “red line” regarding Iran’s nuclear facilities: Obama has extended his lead among registered Jewish voters to 70-25 percent, according to unreleased Gallup daily tracking poll data reported by BuzzFeed.
“The data, obtained through a Democratic source, shows Obama up from leading 64-29 in polling this spring – and on par with his 2008 performance at this point when he led 69-25 over John McCain in Gallup polling,” reports BuzzFeed.
Two daily tracking polls out Saturday show just how close the race is: Gallup had Obama up by a point while Rasmussen gives Romney a 2-point edge.
Meanwhile, the number of undecided voters continues to shrink to just 5-6 percent as people become more fully engaged with the campaign now that the conventions are over and Election Day approaches.
Stay tuned for regular updates.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Foreign Relations Fumbler
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: September 15, 2012
DIPLOMACY is a minefield, and Mitt Romney spent the last week blowing up his foreign policy credentials to be president. He raised doubts about his capacity to deal with global crises, and we were left hoping that if that 3 a.m. call ever went to him, he’d have set up call forwarding.
Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground
Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.
The essential problem is that every time Romney touches foreign policy, he breaks things. He went on a friendly trip to Britain — the easiest possible test for a candidate, akin to rolling off a log — and endeared himself by questioning London’s readiness to host the Olympic Games. In the resulting firestorm, one newspaper, The Sun, denounced “Mitt the Twit.”
(Imagine a President Romney making a London trip and helpfully offering off-the-cuff advice on Northern Ireland, or breaking the ice in Parliament by telling jokes about Queen Elizabeth. The War of 1812 would resume, and the British would again be burning down the White House.)
Then there was the Romney trip to Israel, where he insulted Palestinians and left some Jews uncomfortable with stereotyping by praising Jewish culture in the context of making money. Hmm.
After that trip, you’d have thought that on foreign policy, Romney might remember the adage: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Yet with the Middle East exploding in recent days because of a video insulting the Prophet Muhammad, Romney dived in with a statement that hit a trifecta: it was erroneous, inflammatory and offensive.
Still, I was initially in a forgiving mood. Presidential candidates always have microphones in their faces, and it’s not surprising that periodically they say inane things. President Obama himself blew it a few days ago by mistakenly asserting that we didn’t consider Egypt an ally. But Obama then had the good sense to have the White House clarify that “not an ally” in that context meant “an ally.”
If Romney had similarly explained that in denouncing Obama he was actually praising the administration, the episode might have blown over. But after a night of sleep, he doubled down and repeated his denunciation of the president. That was just reckless.
(Romney also underscored his ignorance by referring to the “embassy” in Benghazi, Libya. Embassies are in capitals, so it was a consulate that was attacked in Benghazi.)
Perhaps the Romney campaign should invest in a muzzle for its candidate. It might even be tax-deductible!
Foreign policy isn’t as glamorous as it seems. Diplomacy mostly consists of managing crazies who are making unreasonable demands in impossible situations with no solutions. And those are just our allies.
In the Middle East, the basic dynamic is that extremists on one side empower extremists on the other. Thus anti-Muslim extremists released a video that Salafi Muslim extremists then publicized to provoke grass-roots outrage that would benefit them.
It’s too bad that Salafis weren’t as indignant about the massacre of Syrians and Sudanese as about the trailer of a movie that may not even exist. As a parody Twitter account of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, posted: “Wow! Good thing I just bombed mosques, killed women and children and I didn’t make an anti-Muslim video! People would be after me!”
The Republican Party is caught in a civil war on foreign policy, and Romney refuses to pick sides. In contrast to his approach on the economy, he just doesn’t seem to have thought much about global issues. My hunch is that for secretary of state he would pick a steady hand, like Robert Zoellick, but Romney has also surrounded himself with volatile neocons.
With China, Romney seems intent on a trade war. In the Middle East, it appears he’d like to subcontract foreign policy to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu recently tried to push the United States to adopt a nuclear red line that, if Iran crossed it, would lead us to go to war there. Obama was right to resist, and it has been unseemly for Romney to side with a foreign leader in spats with the United States.
(For my part, I think Obama should indeed set a red line — warning Netanyahu to stop interfering in American elections.)
Most dangerous of all is Romney’s policy on Iran, which can’t be dismissed as an offhand misstatement. As my colleagues David E. Sanger and Ashley Parker note, Romney muddles his own position on his nuclear red line for Iran. Plenty of candidates don’t write their own foreign policy position papers, but Romney is unusual in that he seems not to have even read his.
According to clarifications from Romney’s campaign, he apparently would order a military strike before Iran even acquired a bomb, simply when it was getting close. For anyone who has actually seen a battlefield, that’s a blithe, too-light embrace of a path to yet another war. It’s emblematic of a candidate who, on foreign policy, appears an empty shell.
The reported signing of an agreement political pact between three political parties with substantial following in the Rift Valley Province now signifies the end enormous influence and political clout of the Eldoret North MP William Ruto in the Rift Valley Province in general and within the Kalenjin community in particular.
The three parties reported to have signed an agreement of co-operation to work together a head of the next year’s general election included KANU, National Vision and the United Democratic Movement.
However, political pundits and observers alike say that the new cooperation is widely seen as a ploy aimed at eroding, Ruto’s URP party’s popularity in the Rift Valley, The parties leaders said “they have decided to work together to create a conducive political environment.”
KANU is led by Gideon Moi, the favorite son of the retired President Daniel Arap Moi,while the National Visio Party of Kenya {N.V.P} is led by the former powerful cabinet Minister Nicholas Kipyator Kiprono Biwott {Karnet} or “powerman” and the United Democratic Movement [UDM} is under the leadership of the retired former deputy Chief of the General Staff {CGS} Lt.Gen {rtd} John Arap Koech.
Although Gideon Moi, the former Baringo Central MP is the defector national chairman of KANU, the party of independence, the party is technically virtually still under the control and influence of the retired President Moi, a man whose enormous political clout in the Rift Valley has remained intact ever since he retired from active politics after losing power to a combined fore of the opposition groups under umbrella of Narc Kenya.
From the look of things, it is now up to Ruto to either dissolve his URP party and rejoin and become party of the new group comprising KANU, NVP and the UDM for his own political survivalor perish altogether with his brigade of MPs supporting the URP in the region.
The political scenario set by the new group, according to the observers of the Rift Valley politics will now leave very little rooms for him to maneuver his way out of the onslaught by the combination of this newly formed formidable for an alliance by the three most influential groups of politicians in the region.
Ruto before launching is United Republican Party had had hatched a secret plans to use the UDM as soft landing pad in anticipation of then the inevitable fall out of favor with his former ODM party led by the Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Ruto had made a spirited attempt to wrestle the UDM party out of Gen Koech’s leadership, a move which resulted in protracted legal tussles through courts.
William Ruto and Gen Koech are known not to be in good books. The relationship of the two came cropper during the 2007 general election when the latter accused Ruto and his agents in the South Rit region for having rigged him twice out of the ODM primary nomination in the Ainamoi constituency within Kericho County, and thereafter during the by-election in the same constituency to fill the vacancy which was created following the death of the former MP for the area the late David Koech two months later.
Gen Koech contested the two elections on ODM ticket, but later blamed Ruto and his spanner boy the Belgut MP Charles Keter for allegedly having master minded for his downfall. It was after this political scenario which prompted Gen Koech to move out of the ODM and hatched the plans of reviving the hitherto run-down sleeping UDM by registering the party a fresh with others.
Gen Koech was joined by Ole Kamwaro who became he UDM Secretary-General with himself being made the party national chairman. The General, however, did not severe is link with the ODM leader Raila Odinga, who later appointed him to a head the Poverty Eradication Commission a parastatal which falls under the Prime Minister’s office as its executive chairman.
An unsuccessful attempt to overthrown the General and his team by a group suspected to have been at the behest of sponsorship by Ruto and his friend was met with fiercest opposition by General Koech and his team, hence the beginning of the long and hard fought court cases.
It is worthwhile to remember that it was through the joint efforts of the late Kipsigis powerful politician the late Donald Kipkemoi Kipkalya Kones and General Koech that had paved the way for the Raila Odinga and his ODM to triumphantly gained entry into Kipsigis region of the South Rift in 2007.This effort was later to yield in the ODM’s success in the region in 2007 where members of the Kipsigis community voted for the party on man-to-man.
Report on the round in this agriculturally rich Kipsigis land covering two Counties of Kericho and Bomet is showing that William Ruto is not controlling the Kalenjin politics as such. This is just the simple perception of the newspapers making.
Our dailies have been erroneously reports insisting that Ruto is the new political kingpin of the Rift Valley Province after Moi left the leadership vacuum in the region. Moi’s political clout among he Kalenjin community is still very intact, especially in the South Rift region which is inhabited by members of the most populous Kipsigis sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups.
The political clout of the self-confessed professor of Kenya’s politics is yet to be fizzled out an anyone who ignore this fact can do so on his or her own peril This is one of the reasons why the political pundits and observers of the Kalenjin politics now say that the new unity pact between KANU NVP and UDM could easily bring to an abrupt end Wiliam Ruto’s excessive arrogance
However, keen observers 0f the Rift Valley politics have been heard saying that the new unity pact between KANU, NVP and UDM posed a real threat to Willam Ruto’s URP. party which he intend to use as a popular vehicles for his access to the State House race during he impending general elections.
Meanwhile a top Kipsigis politician has expressed his unreserved support and endorsement for the unity pact signed at the Weekend between KANU, NVP and County KANU branch secretary. However, he sounded a stern warning to members of his Kipsigis community to be careful about political tribal groupings, saying that this cold isolate them and make hem lose political contacts with other communities. A move them which could keep them out of the successive future governments.
“The wrong assumption that William Ruto’s URP party controls the large section of the residents of the expansive Rift Valley Province is untrue,” said Kettienya.
He went on, “It is important that that the residents of the Rift Valley region, particularly members of the Kalenjin community have been losing essential contacts with the government of the day in the last the years, and this political scenario if allowed to continue unchecked will make the community locked out of any future governments to be formed by other political parties.
The URP anted to keep the whole Kalenjin community under ne basket and I the armpit of William Ruto. The common saying in some parts of the region now is that anybody who consider the option of joining other parties is viewed political outcasts.
The Kalenjins must join other parties like KANU, ODM, UDOM, TNA and others in order to ensure that they booked themselves in the next government which will be formed after the next year’s general elections. He said he personally consider the KANU cooperation with the ODM as the better option.
Kettienya said the days of tribal grouping are long gone, because the time is ripe for Kenyans of good will to think in nationalistic terms instead of parochial and partisan politics which are the recipe of chaos and despondency.
Following the remarks made by in the just concluded Ndhiwa by-election Tom Otieno Onyango Alila,political pundits were quick in saying that the new pact grouping KNU, NVP and UDM could be warming up to the ODM and the presidential bid of its leader Raila Odinga.
Congratulating Gen Koech for having kept his UDM party intact, Ketienya called upon the Kipsigis sub-tribe to join the party en mess in order to provide the party with the necessary ammunition or power bargain after the next general elections.
It has also been established that the euphoria with which the URP had hit the ground with thud in the South Rift Region is quickly be fizzled out as fast as it had come, and the regio is rapidly drifting towards the ODM. Some of the MPs in the area who are have recently turned to be hostile towards the ODM are said to be heading for political limbos come the next general election, which could see completely new faces of MP in the region.
The two Counties of Kericho and Bomet are currently represented in the10th parliament by 8 MPS representing Kipkellion, Ainamoi, Belut, Konoin, Buret, Sotik, Chepalungu an Bomet. All the present legislators were elected on Dom tickets including that of one extra seat in Kuresoi constituency in Molo.
Four of the MPs have since ditched ODM for URP. They included Dr Julius Kones, {Konoin},Isaack Ruto {Chepalungu}, Charles Keter {Belgut} and Benjamin Lang’at {Ainmoi}, The Kuresoi mp Zakayo Cheruiyot had also abandoned the ODM.
However, four of the MP remained steadfastly in ODM.They are Franklin Bett {Buret}. Dr Joyce Laboso {Sotik}, Magerer Lang’at Kipkellion} and Beatrice Kones {Bomet}.
The region was recently awarded with two additional parliamentary seats by the IEBC one in Sigowet in lower region of Belgut district an Kipkellion West..This now means that the Kipsigis region will now post 10 MPs to the next parliament after the impeding general elections
From: Ouko joachim omolo
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta are almost 100 percent sure that their candidates will win by-elections in Ndhiwa and Kangema tomorrow. While Uhuru made passionate appeal to Kangema residents that by electing The National Alliance (TNA) party candidate in Monday’s by-election would herald his march to State House, Raila said he will not vie for presidency when ODM candidate does not win.
Mr Kenyatta asked locals to come out in large numbers and ensure Tirus Ngahu won with majority votes, saying his win would ensure he had the political muscle to enable him propel his presidential ambitions. “I want to appeal to you to vote for TNA on Monday as a win for TNA is a win for me. This win will mark the beginning of my journey to State House and also give me strength to negotiate with other regions,” he said yesterday during his final day for campaign.
For Raila it would be a big embarrassment if the electorate rejected ODM candidate Augustine Neto Oyugi in Monday by-election, noting categorically that the party is confident that Oyugi would beat his rivals for ODM to retain the seat. “Ka ok umiya Neto kaka jaod bura maru to kata an ok abichung e kom maduong’ cha (If you do not give me Neto as your MP, then I will not vie for the top seat),” he said at a rally at Magina Trading Centre on Saturday.
According to Raila a win for the party in Ndhiwa would be a barometer on its performance in the General Election due in March. Raila said his political opponents for the presidency are closely watching ODM’s performance in the Ndhiwa by-election. “It will be a big shame if ODM loses the by-election. I am supposed to be busy campaigning in areas outside my stronghold. I expect you to campaign for me in this region”.
Neto is faced by Tom Alila (Kanu) and Rosemary Rumo (TNA). Raila is already in dilemma as Kenya’s oldest political party, KANU declared support for his presidential bid in the March 2013 general Election if Ndiwa constituents for Tom Alila since KANU will not be fielding a presidential candidate in the coming general election and instead will back the Orange Democratic Movement’s Odinga for the top seat.
The fact that historically Ndhiwa has been a KANU zone, to Raila’s and ODM surprise Tom Alila might emerge the winner. Ndhiwa Constituency which is an electoral constituency in Homa Bay County has been KANU prone zone until recently.
Its first Member of Parliament in KANU ticket in 1966 was Joswa Odero Jowi, Matthew Otieno Ogingo, 1969, Joseph Odero Jowi came again in 1974, Zablon Owigo Olang’, 1979, Ochola Ogaye Mak’Anyengo, 1983-88. In 1990 Matthew Otieno Ogingo recaptured the seat again through by-election.
Although in 1992, Tom Elvis Okello Obondo won on Ford-Kenya ticket, KANU still remained strong in the constituency. Joshua Orwa Ojode won the seat by-election through Ford-Kenya in 1994. Ojode won again in 1997 on a NDP ticket. In 2002 Ojode won on NARC ticket and 2007 until his death in June 2012 on ODM ticket.
The constituency has ten wards, Central Kabuoch as of September 2005 with 5,515 registered voters, Central Kanyamwa, 3,882 voters, East Kwabwai, 4,899 voters, Kanyandoto, 5,037, Kanyamwa Kologi, 7,419, Kanyikela, 2,200 voters, Riana West, 4,899, South Kabuoch, 7,915, West Kanyamwa, 5,073, and West Kwabwai with 4,347 registered voters making a total of 51,186 registered voters in Ndhiwa constituency.
One of the losers in ODM Ndhiwa nominations has already thrown his weight behind Kanu’s candidate in the September 17 by-elections. Washington Kale will head Tom Alila’s campaign team. The losers maintained that ODM imposed their aspirants against the Ndhiwa electorates.
On Uhuru side, opinion polls are to be believed, then his TNA aspirant is to win tomorrow’s by-election. The latest polling from the Strategic Research indicate that Ngahu will emerge the winner-but will this really determine his way to State House?
According to the poll Ngahu will emerge the winner with 4,500 votes, followed by Simon with 3,800, Muturi, 2,900, Kimani, 1,800, Gathogo, 1,420 and Njuguna with 250 votes.
The candidates in Kangema include, Tiras Nyingi Ngahu (TNA), Simon Mwangi (UDF), Muturi Kigano (Saba Saba Asili), Njuguna Mwangi (Mzalendo Saba Saba), John Gathogo (Mkenya Solidarity Movement), and Paul Kimani Mugo (PNU).
Ngahu is a former high school teacher and is in the insurance industry. UDF’s Mwangi holds a degree in commerce and has been a long serving accountant at the Murang’a County Council. Kigano of Saba Saba Asili is a Nairobi-based lawyer who served in the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya.
ODM leader, Prime Minister Raila Odinga did not fill any candidate but was in Kangema to campaign for the Mkenya Solidarity party candidate John Gathogo. Kangema has 37,000 registered voters, with 44 polling stations, according to records of voters during the 2010 referendum.
In Kajiado North Uhuru Kenyatta is expecting TNA’s Moses ole Sakuda to win. Planning Assistant minister Peter Kenneth is hoping for Peter Munene of the Kenya National Congress, while Raila is counting on Peter Mositet of ODM.
Kajiado North candidates include David Sakuda, TNA Solomon Kinyanjui, Wiper Democratic Party, Salaon Kashorda UDF, Livingstone Sane Agano, Paul Gichinga, KANU and Peter Munene of Kenya National Congress among others. Kajiado North has the highest registered voters’ with118, 854 in 117 polling stations.
Moses ole Sakuda who has since shifted to TNA from ODM is likely to win given that Prof George Saitoti was PNU who, even though he is a Kikuyu appeared to have inspired his constituent voters.
Sakuda who during the last elections file an unsuccessful petition when Saitoti defeated him is closely followed by Mositet, Sakuda and Wiper Democratic Party’s Solomon Kinyanjui who are perceived by some Kajiado North electorates as possible next MP.
They argue that either Mositet or Kinyanjui might win given that Kikuyu votes could be shared among the top three aspirants who in one way or the other are affiliated to the members of the Maasai community.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Peaceful world is the greatest heritage
That this generation can give to the generations
To come- All of us have a role.
There has been hue and cry about the flawed nominations during preliminaries, and now that the new constitution has the provisions, which allows for the participation of independent candidates in the election some of the parties would find it extremely difficult to attract aspirants who would contest the election for the various elective positions in 2013.
There has been hue and cry about the much flawed parties weak and undemocratic primary nomination system ever since the violence marred genera elections of 2007. Each time there is a by-election for any vacant parliamentary or civic seats, participants in such election have been coming out fire-spiting with allegations massive riggings.
Other contestants have come out fuming with claims of massive briberies, vote buying, manipulations of such elections by party high ranking officials and the hastily appointed hand-picked returning officers and elections officials, poor arrangements, luck of logistics and inadequacy of election materials and luck of accountability and transparency during such exercises.
However, political parties in this country appeared have tuned deaf and dumb, making no effort to have these anomalies adequately addressed an rectified in time to create democratic space allowing all aspirants their constitutional and democratic rights of participating in the elections.
There is a lot of on-going murmuring everywhere about the legitimacy of political parties preliminaries .Parties have only six months left to have these anomalies rectified and pragmatic policy blueprint governing their primary nomination ushered in.
If this is not done in time, some of the parties might find it extremely difficult to attract candidates who would wish to contest the elections on their tickets.
Alternatively it could be wise for the current 10th parliament before its dissolution before the next general elections to introduce substantive motion in the House to have a fresh debate on the issue of party primary nominations else have this provision abolished it altogether.
Alternatively to make a new provision to have these preliminaries elections by parties conducted by the Interim Election and Boundary Commission {IEBC. It has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt that our political parties cannot an are incapable of conducting any credible preliminaries on their own, hence the need for the IEBC’s active participation in the exercises.
The recent primary nomination conducted by the ODM during Ndhiwa by-election should be a study case. In the controversial preliminary in that particular parliamentary electoral constituency, close to 70 per cent of the electorate were locked out and denied their constitutional and democratic rights of voting in the by-election and the eventually in the election proper, because only less than 10 per cent of the registered voters cast their votes.
Ndhiwa is one of the most populous constituency within the C the greater old Southern Nyanza region n within the County of Homa-Bay followed by the old Kasipul-Kabondo with Rongo and Karachuonyo coming out third and fourth respectively.
Records are indicating that close to 84,000 or more voters are registered in Ndhiwa constituency. But shockingly and surprisingly only about 7,200 people were able to cast heir votes. There could have been more apathy by the voters. However, the number of votes cast represented less than 10 per cent of the registered voters in the just concluded and controversial by-election.
The 7,200 were shared only by six candidates including the declared winner in the by-election which had attracted 23 candidates, therefore these aspirants were denied their constitutional and democratic rights of being voted in.
The same could be said of the close to 77,000 or more the number of voters who were locked out of the exercise and therefore did not take part in the by-election. Why? It is shame and a big shame on the ODM, the party which has all along been boasting of championing the essence of the democratic principles in this county and whose leader rail Amolo Odinga has all along been in the forefront in the struggle for the multi party system of politics and democratic space as well as good governance for years.
I personally visited the various us poorly arranged makeshift polling stations in the expansive constituency, particularly at Magina, Obera,Pala,Ndhiwa, Ratang’a Rapedhi and Kobodo during early hours of the morning. The tuning out by he voters was excellent. But there were no signs of returning officers and election clerks for the best parts of the morning hours. Voters waiting for too long while queuing in the blazing sun outside the polling stations with no signs of election officials on sight There were no ballot boxes nor ballot papers. And after waiting for too long most of the would be voters became disillusioned and highly agitated leading to some ugly and isolated incidents including fist fights erupting in some stations, the majority of the voters opted to go home peacefully.
It appeared that the party big-wigs had someone in min whom they wished to be elected, but kept their secrets I their chest. Off course each of the aspirants had parted with Khs 200,000 paid in cash to the ODM headquarters at the Orange House in Nairobi before being issued with the clearance certificate of participation to the exercise, and one is made to believed that if all the 23 aspirants had paid their cash deposits to the party, the amount could have been sufficiently enough to fray off the costs of printing enough election materials as well as hiring election officials and field supervisors .This was not done. Why? Where this colossal amount of money did goes to?
The ODM has since dissolved its seemingly inept election board previously headed by he former Rangwe MP Eng Phillip Okundi and replace it with the new one whose members re still yet to be named publicly. However, fears persist in many parts of Luo-Nyanza that the next January primary nomination by the party for those intending to contest the elections for various elective positions would not be free and fair.
ODM leaders and members in Luo-Nyanza and elsewhere are suspicious about the intention and the role to be played by members of the so-called party re-loaded team.
Others have bee heard saying they were keeping their option for heir own chest, an perhaps they would opt to run and contest the elections as independent candidates. Similar complaints have been received fro members of the Musalia Mudavadi led URD party in Western Province.
From all these, there are clear indications that some of the existing political parties would not attract and get the sufficient number of candidates to fill the elective positions under the new constitutional dispensation which had re-introduce tri-cameral parliament that including Senate, National Assembly, County governors and County electoral wards.
The fears that persist inside Luo-Nyanza is said to be spreading very fast into the neighboring region of Kisii and the South Rift where the William Ruto lead URP despite having recently conducted the “Kangaroo” like grass root election it which were famous and notorious for “selective elections’ and now ODM and modern day political parties in Kenya.
Our hearts go out to the families of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and the other Americans who lost their lives during Tuesday night’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. Demonstrations outside several U.S. embassies continue, and American officials may still be in danger.
At such a grave moment, Mitt Romney could have chosen words to help console and unite a nation in grief. Instead, he launched a false and craven attack on our president.
Romney accused President Obama of “sympathizing” with the murderers and apologizing for American values, based on a statement the president never made.1
Even Republicans were shocked by Romney’s response. “Just calling it a ‘disgrace’ doesn’t really cut it,” says a former John McCain aide.2 “It wasn’t presidential,” according to a former Bush State Department official.3
When faced with a national emergency, Romney rushed to judgment, acted rashly, lied to the American people, and put politics ahead of the national interest.
That’s something voters need to consider when they decide who has the temperament to be Commander in Chief. You have the power to make that happen by getting in the most highly read section of the newspaper: the letters to the editor.
Here’s what happened. In response to a clearly offensive amateur film defaming Islam, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo condemned efforts “to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”4
In a misguided attempt to exploit the Libyan tragedy, Romney falsely attributed this statement to the White House, falsely claimed it was an apology, and falsely identified it as a response to the attacks, even though it was made before the attacks.5
In fact, while President Obama rightly rejected the denigration of religious beliefs, he strongly condemned the attacks, saying, “we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.”6
Americans are probably asking themselves today whether Romney failed a critical test of leadership. One senior Republican even called this Romney’s “Lehman moment,” in reference to Senator McCain’s failure to act as a steady leader in response to the Lehman Brother’s crisis in 2008.7
But what matters even more is what you think. Your voice can be the most powerful in shaping the views of your friends and neighbors. So share your thoughts about what Romney’s actions say about his fitness to lead.
Thanks for all you do.
–Justin, Laura, Stefanie, Wes, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “Obama Condemns Attack That Kills Ambassador to Libya,” The New York Times, September 12, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280653&id=51585-21095459-zzRfgCx&t=4
2. “Foreign Policy Hands Voice Disbelief At Romney Cairo Statement,” BuzzFeed, September 12, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280582&id=51585-21095459-zzRfgCx&t=5
3. Ibid.
4. “An embassy statement, a tweet, and a major misunderstanding,” The Washington Post, September 13, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280652&id=51585-21095459-zzRfgCx&t=6
“Mitt Romney will never be president,” Salon.com, September 12, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280608&id=51585-21095459-zzRfgCx&t=7
5. Ibid.
6. “Obama Addresses Libya Attacks, Death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens,” The Huffington Post, September 12, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280661&id=51585-21095459-zzRfgCx&t=8
7. “Foreign Policy Hands Voice Disbelief At Romney Cairo Statement,” BuzzFeed, September 12, 2012
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Sent by MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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Romney’s shameless attempt to exploit the consulate tragedy in Libya as a political attack shows a lack of character and judgment. Send that message to members of your community by writing a letter to the editor (it’s the most read section of the paper!).
Write a letter to the editor about Romney’s character and judgement.
Influence views in your community by writing a letter to the editor.
http://pol.moveon.org/lte/lte_t.html?zip=45402<e_campaign_id=140
Mitt Romney’s Fitness to Lead
Our hearts go out to the families of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and the other Americans who lost their lives during Tuesday night’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.
At such a grave moment, Mitt Romney could have helped console and unite a nation in grief, instead of launching a false and craven attack on our president. Romney’s irresponsible and misleading response to the tragedy have raised serious concerns about his ability to lead, even from within his own party.
[. . .]
The Orange Democratic movement {ODM} top brass team led by the party’s Secretary General Prof. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o made an extensive tour of Ndhiwa constituency to drum up the support for the party candidate Augustine Neto Oyugi who is embroiled in the by-election campaign. The group successfully addressed a series of public rallies at the various marketplaces, trading centers and in Ndhiwa town.
Prof Nyongo’ was accompanied by he local ODM MPs from the greater Southern Nyanza region.
They included Martin Otieno Ogindo {Rangwe} John Mbadi {Gwassi] Eng.James K .Rege {Karachuonyo}, Land Minister James Orengo local party branch leaders, several aspirants for the various elective positions within the Homa-Bay County governance, parliamentary constituencies and aspirants for Senates seats and women parliamentary representatives County Ward’s representatives etc.
However, Prof Nyong’o’s team encountered a chaotic situation when the it visited Oyugis Town in Kasipul-Kabondo constituency Rachuonyo South district as the head of ODM campaign team to drum up support for the party candidate in the civic by-election in Wire Migwi Ward.
This is the most controversial Ward in the region where the late Ogweno Ong’ondo, the former Oyugis Mayor who had won the election in 2007 o a ticket of a party known as KUNAP which has since ceased to exist.
The ODM official candidate is David Ochieng’Abuor who is facing stiffest opposition from a TNA candidate David Dache Akuku. The latter had lost ODM nomination primaries, and later switched side and hopped to the TNA to the chagrins of ODM leadership since the law has since outlawed party hoppers.
Allegations and rumors have also emerged that some of the parliamentary aspirants in the area are only giving lip-services to the ODM while privately funding the campaign activities of the rival parties candidates
Nyong’o’s team was met by party officials from Kasipul and Kabondo Kasipul constituencies at Kosele district headquarters of the Rachuonyo South district and dove to Oyugis town in a convoy of sleek car at the Oyugis-Kendu-Bay junction.
It was here where the signs of troubles ahead started surfacing.
The Kasipul-Kabondo incumbent MP Joseph Oyugi Maguwanga met with the group. The MP insisted that the team had to go to Nyadendi Hotel, but party officials in the area had earlier made some tentative arrangement that Nyong’o and is team would first of all visit the ODM office in town, sign visitor’s book and addressed the officials and others at the office. Bitter argument ensured and Nyong’o concurred with the local branch officials that his team would visit the party office first. The MP persuaded some of the MP who branched off from the Nyong’o’s entourage and went Nyadendi Hotel to the displeasure of the party local officials who viewed the MP’s action as that armed at undermining the ODM in the area..They stayed at the hotel for close to one hour, while Nyong’o conducted the meeting in the ODM office.
At the party office in Oyugis town Pro Nyong’o’s group also met a large number of aspirants vying for the various elective positions on ODM tickets in Kisii and Nyamira Counties as ell as the local aspirants and addressed them.
And while the meeting at ODM office was in progress the area MP burst in accompanied by track-load of unruly an rowdy youths.
The MP came to the office at the tine when one of the parliamentary aspirants for Kasipul seat Charles Were Ong’ondo was addressing the gathering inside office. Ong’ondo extended a gesture of welcoming the MP into the office, but some how cracked a joke by saying that the MP has never set his foot into the party office in Oyugis ever since he and his team were roundly defeated during the party’s grass root election the previous year.
These remarks did not go down well with the MP who stared shouting that some people were hell bent in spreading dirty propaganda aimed at undermining him Chaos broke lose with some party branch officials shouting back at the top of their voices alleging that MP Maguwanga is working with TNA.
The bi – election polls in both Atela and Wire / Migwa Wards are secheduled for September 17, altogether with that of Ndhiwa parliamentry by-elections
At this point the youth who had been sitting inside a land rover vehicle jumped out and menacingly rooting for a fight. Local party branch officials physically pushed the MP at the office and Prof.Nyong’o called off the meeting and told those in attendance to proceed to the venue of the campaign rally at Kagak-Nyalenda.
More chaotic situation erupted at the rally forcing Prof Nyong’o to forcefully grab the microphone from MP Maguwanga who was increasing under siege by the paltry crowd at the rally.
The MP told the rally tat he was firmly in ODM and only his detractors who are making things difficult for him by heaping false accusation against him. The remark did not go down well wit the crowd shouting back saying he the MP was undermining ODM in the area.
The situation was the same when the team visited Atela Ward in Kabondo Kasipul constituency with some voices coming from the crowd accusing the MPs of conspiracy with other unnamed people who are allegedly engaged in subverting the ODM and allegedly supporting TNA civic candidate for Wire/Migwa Ward in the on-going by-election campaign.
At the Oyugis OM office it took the political magnanimity Hebert Ojwang’ the Nairobi based businessman who is vying for the Kabondo-Kasipul parliamentary seat to calm down the engaged ODM officials who were menacingly rooting for a fight with MP Maguwangag they would support TNA or URP.It later emerged that MP Maguwanga is having a lean time and under siege ever since the populous Kasipul –Kabondo was sub-divided by the IEBC
The expansive constituency has now been renamed Kasipul I its lower part, while the upper part, maily Kabondo region is renamed Kabondo –Kasipul constituency.
MP Maguwand whose home is near Oyugis hs the oughest choice ahead, because most of his relatives and loyalsupporters among them the resident of Kojwaha and Kaelo have been transferred and included in Kabondo Kasipul together with the resident of KokwanyoLocatins. His parens are living around Dudi/Ober-Mikaye area in Kakelo location, while the MP had established his own home at East Kamaak Konyango near Oyugis. In this part of lower Kasipul, he appeared to have lost the support of the resident who are are hell-bent I backing their own sons and daughters.
The lower part of the old Kasipul-Kabondo, which is, in this case is the original Kasipul comprises sub-clans of Kokal/Kanyago, Kotieno, Kodera, Kachien, Konyango in Kamagak West a well as large number of immigrant settlers from other Luo regions.
MP Maguwanga present problems appeared to have emerged and came about because he is a member of the minority Wasweta sub-clan whose origins could as well be traced in Suba regions of Suna/Migori and Suba regions But had settled among the Jo-Konyango, one of the largest sub-clans in the region.
His parent’s home is in Kakelo in the eastern part of the old Kasipul-Kabondo. He has a tough choice to make either to defend his seat in the old Kasipul or switch his political camp to kabondo-Kasipul in the east where he can join his Wasweta sub-clans and his uncles the Jo-Kojwach sub-clans for votes hunting.
The MP’s position is made precarious due to the fact that each one of the major sub-clans in Kasipul is fronting their own son to grab the seat. In this clans rivalries arithmetic,
The Jo-Konyangoroup have Eng. Tom Okoko, while the Jo-Kokal/Kanyango have the former MP William Oloo Otula, Kevin Odoyo Owidi , the younger brother of the former MP the late Eng.Peter Owidi, and the youthful businessman Sam Kotiende, at the same time the Jo-Kotieno and the Nairobi based lawyer Samuel Ochilo who is now a resident of Kokech location withi the larger Jo-Koteno. Ochillo, however, originally from Wasweta in Kamagak East, but has since settled in Kokech. The Jo-Kodera sub-clans Also vying for the same seat is Captain John Omolo an ex-Kenya Navy soldier from Kodera North, Eng Ogwang and Paul Mboga from Kodera North. have the Norway based senior university lecturer.
Dr.Otieno Mbare, and the Jo-Kachien have fronted the populist Meru-based businessman Charles Were Ong’ondo whose candidature appeared to be making major in-roads across the board into all sub-clans small and larger.
The MP is said to be disillusioned, though he had written to the ODM head office at the Orange House indicating that he would defend his seat, but he is reported not to have specifically mentioned as to in which constituency he is going to contest the election, because of the sub-division which has caused a lot of political intrigues I the region.
MP Maguwanga rivals in both constituencies being aware of his predicament are said to be making a big kill, hence the accusation that he is not genuine ODM loyal member. He is not to be warmly welcome in the newly created Kabondo-Kasipul constituency where his family lived and has a home in Kakelo Dudi area.
The Jo-Kabondo groups have also lined up their own sons and daughters for the new seat and would not hear of the Maguwanga’s name. What a dilemma a political dilemma is facing the MP facing?.
