National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has hit out at Deputy President William Ruto for referring to political parties in the Mount Kenya region as tribal outfits.
While addressing a political rally on Sunday, November 21, Muturi rubbished the sentiments by Ruto, affirming that area leaders would not be bullied to dissolve their parties and join the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party.
The 2022 presidential aspirant went ahead to defend his statehouse bid stating that his party had met the criteria of a national political outfit.
"Let us not be told by anybody that any of our parties are tribal. The requirement for registration is to have at least 24 functioning branch offices."
"The Democratic Party has more than 40 branches. Can you call that a tribal party?" Muturi queried.
In his address, Muturi further defended the Mount Kenya Unity Forum, a forum for political parties in the central region, explaining that the parties were created to protect the interest of the vote region.
"These parties represent people. The parties represent the interests of the communities. Let us be in a party which identifies our interests, the problems of our region, and the problems of our people," the speaker explained.
The sentiments by Muturi come a day after Ruto while touring Embu County called on potential allies in the region to fold their parties and join the UDA.
On several occasions, the Deputy President has insisted that he will not be seeking to form an alliance with other political parties as the country heads to the 2022 General Elections.
“Let’s strive to have a better country, we must work as a team to form the next government that will implement a bottom-up approach to revive the economy that will help the common man,” the DP stated.
However, the DP’s remarks have seen him come under sharp criticism from central region leaders such as NARC- Kenya party leader Martha Karua, who maintained that they would seek the unity of the region through their parties.
“We saw what having one party did to us, like how we gave powers to Jubilee over Mt Kenya and other regions. If you spoke ill, you would receive letters from party leaders threatening to throw you out of the party,” Karua stated.
