Majority Leader Aden Duale has told off his Jubilee coalition critics, declaring that his position is safeguarded in the agreement between The National Alliance and United Republican Party.
Speaking from Turkey, he said those calling for his resignation had forgotten details of the deal which was signed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, before last year’s elections.
Mr Duale maintained his defiance as a section of North Eastern and Muslim MPs threatened to reassess their support for the government in the face of the on-going security swoop.
The pre-election coalition agreement, he said, allotted the Majority Leader’s position to Mr Ruto’s URP, which handed him the post.
“It is a URP position so they have to live with it,” he said. There is nothing they can do,” he said on phone from Turkey, where he accompanied the President on a state visit.
The Garissa Township MP has come under pressure from sections of Jubilee MPs to resign after he threatened to withdraw his support for the government to protest against the police security swoop in Eastleigh, Nairobi, and other towns to fight terrorism.
He Muslims and members of his community were being targeted.
“We are extremely dismayed by Mr Duale for making reckless statements claiming that Muslims were being targeted in the ongoing operation,” said Kigumo MP Jamleck Kamau.
He said Jubilee had many MPs who would readily take up the position if the Majority Leader resigned.
But yesterday, Mr Duale stated that while he supported the government’s war on terrorism, Muslim and Somali leaders were unhappy about intimidation and discrimination by security agents.
“The Muslim community is fully in support of the war on terrorism but we are totally against situations where security agents arrest our people indiscriminately.
“Do they want us to clap when our people are being discriminated against?” he said.
The MP said they joined politics to help their people and not to “clap hands at everything”.
His support for President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto was intact but he will defend the rights of Muslims and the Somali community, he added.
At Parliament, seven members of the North Eastern Parliamentary Group claimed Muslims and the Somalis were being profiled.
They threatened to withdraw from the ruling coalition.
“Kenyans are being told terrorists are Somalis and that Eastleigh is their home. We are being seen as sympathisers and supporters of terrorism for defending the Kenyan Somalis in Eastleigh,” said Senator Billow Kerrow.
Autor: Maalik Eng
Source/Fuente: http://shabelle.net/?p=18517
