Sunday 11 November 2012

FORA Re-brands, Condemns Tribal Alliances and Shuttle Diplomacy

FRIENDS OF RAILA (FORA) – PRESS STATEMENT

11 November 2012


After a two day intensive consultation and re-energizing retreat, FORA has come up with a thorough national road map to guarantee Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s victory in the 1st round in the forthcoming general elections. To this end, we are pleased to announce that to completely refocus our energies on the March 2013 General Elections, we have Re-branded ourselves and will now become ‘Friends of Raila (FORA) 2013.


We as frontline friends of the Prime Minister are happy to anchor his resolve to peg his Presidential Campaign on the promise to address key challenges and grievances of each and every of our various communities.

It is a fact that each of Kenya’s 42 tribes, immigrant communities and the various religious, business, professional, sports and cultural groups have unique needs and challenges which remain unaddressed for many years. Some of these challenges are the cause of negative ethnicity, negative politics, ethnic tensions, religious suspicions, underdevelopment and suspicions between our people.

To his credit the Prime Minister and indeed the ODM fraternity have dug deep, done a dichotomy and realized that working out specific remedies for these unique circumstances is the sure way to heal the country while moving it forward at the same time.

As loyal disciples of the Prime Minister, we have thus worked out and intend to roll out a very powerful door to door campaign to market this new plan to Kenyan voters.

This will ensure that Rt. Hon Raila Odinga’s victory will be a true victory for all Kenyans and the beginning of the long awaited true liberation of our people.

FORA also wants to firm up the Prime Minister’s issue oriented and progressive politics by mainstreaming the national agenda in the campaigns. This we know revolves around reforms, implementation of the new constitution, fast tracking economic growth, catalyzing national cohesion plus youth and women empowerment through high quality education and job creation.

This is directly opposed to the PM’s bitter opponents whose only agenda in the campaigns is the International Criminal Court (ICC), Raila bashing and ethnic engineering. Clearly our opponents have no national agenda for the benefit of Kenyans and it appears if they cheat their way to power they will stagnate the country.

We have noted with deep concern and trepidation that our opponents are making concerted efforts to make the ICC process the central theme of the next General Elections to the exclusion of matter that affect the development, welfare and wellbeing of the majority of Kenyans and is setting out to build Election Alliances built around ethnic engineering and ICC brinkmanship.

We have further noted that the TNA leadership is involved in suspicious diplomacy centred around states that have previously been involved or affected by Genocide such as Burundi and Rwanda, not to mention their recent dalliances with the MRC leadership, be it via proxies.

Whereas the TNA is free to undertake whatever form of diplomacy or enter into agreements with whichever groups (legal or illegal) as it so wishes, we are becoming increasingly concerned that Kenya is being dragged into illicit secret relationships with our neighbours based on personal tribulations of individuals and to pursue selfish agendas rather than the wider national interests of all Kenyans.

Since when did visits to our neighbours and trading partners by Cabinet Ministers and a Deputy Premier become focused on their personal cases at the Hague rather than issues such as trade, security, export, regional cooperation and the welfare of the citizens of the two friendly nations.

Kenyans have several pressing and important issues such as poverty, terrorism, floods and hunger that need addressing yet we are transforming our trading partners into Hague Henchmen of a few and Building Political Alliances centered around the ICC rather than developing joint ideologies for development and the welfare of all Kenyan.

We therefore wish to warn our neighbours and trading partners that Kenya is not on trial at the Hague, neither are the communities from where the suspects hail and they should avoid getting dragged into politics of deceit and personal self-preservation.

We also wish to warn against the trend of forming alliances based on personal and tribal interests of the party leaders but rather on the wider KENYAN AGENDA.

Signed by the National Chairman Micah Kigen and Ag. Secretary General Risper Kemunto

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