The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy has now abandoned its demands for national dialogue, and now wants a national referendum.
In a resolution that was read out at the Saba Saba rally, CORD leaders said they would form a committee to collect one million signatures across the country to come up with referendum questions.
Led by the coalitions principals Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka,the coalition has formed a movement called Okoa Kenya (OK) with an ambitious agenda which includes what they said will be to support one another in good and bad times and to defend the Constitution.
Unlike in the past, the much-awaited Saba Saba rally did not draw the kind of huge crowds that have characterized Raila’s rallies.
“We decided that even if it’s only 12 people, we will come here and talk to you,” Kalonzo said with Wetang’ula alleging that the State had intimidated their supporters by blocking them at Eastlands and Dagoretti from accessing Uhuru Park.
“You can frustrate a dream, you can postpone a dream and you can lock a dream but you can never kill a dream,” Wetang’ula said.
And in a 13-point resolution which included their latest demand for a referendum, CORD called for the immediate withdrawal of Kenyan forces from Somalia.
According to the new game plan, CORD now wants to convene an all-inclusive National Referendum Committee (NRC) for the purpose of preparing Kenyans for a referendum on the critical challenges facing the nation.
CORD will be seeking to collect one million signatures to compel the country to go to a referendum even as they push for the disbandment of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
“The mandate of the NRC should include ensuring the maximum participation of Kenyans in the referendum at the county, sub-county and ward levels all over Kenya; in formulating the referendum question(s), collecting and collating one million signatures to initiate the referendum,” one of the resolutions reads.
Top on the agenda of CORD’s demand will be devolution, which they now claim Jubilee has been subverting and other issues such as insecurity.
CORD chiefs who addressed their supporters at Uhuru Park said they had been dismayed by the Government’s rejection of dialogue and now had decided to express sovereignty directly as per article 1 of the Constitution. “Today, we announce that we have vacated calls for dialogue because we can’t talk any more to ‘deaf’ people,” declared Kalonzo.
AUTHOR: BEN GUMO.