Party of National Unity (Kenya)
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Party of National Unity (PNU) is a newly created political coalition of parties in Kenya. On September 16, 2007, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announced the new formation and said that he will run as its presidential candidate in the December 2007 Kenyan elections.
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[edit] Overview
The PNU is a coalition of several parties, including: KANU, Narc-Kenya, Ford-Kenya, Ford-People, Democratic Party, Shirikisho and others. President Mwai Kibaki was to be the only personal member of PNU besides the corporate membership through the affiliated parties.[1]
PNU was created shortly before the elections to held in December 2007. Until Beginning of September it was not clear on which party's ticket the president was goimg to run. In the 2002 elections, Kibaki ran as the candidate of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), which had since split. The erstwhile original NARC was legally in the hands of its chairperson Charity Ngilu who showed no inclination of siding with Kibaki for a renewed bid. Kibakis allies had already pulled out of NARC and founded NARC-Kenya which was, however, not on good terms with a number of important politicians in Kibakis government of National Unity which had seen the intake of erstwhile opposition figures since 2005 who held on to their parties like KANU or Ford-Kenya. [2]
[edit] Elections
Poor political preparation of the new party became obvious in the process of nomination for parliamentary seats. Initially, PNU member parties agreed to field parliamentary and civic candidates under PNU, except KANU, which was permitted field its own candidates [3]. However, this agreement failed to materialise. As a result, some candidates -mainly from Kibaki's former Democratic Party- contested under PNU ticket and others under their respective parties. In a number of constituencies PNU-affiliated candidates were contesting against each other for the same parliamentary seat [4].
PNU faired poorly in the parliamentary elections 2007 reaching only 43 seats against nearly 99 for its main rival ODM. Together with affiliated parties, however, it could command around 78 members of parliament.
[edit] References
- ^ PNU-homepage , seen on 3-01-2008
- ^ Kibaki's re-election bid in disarray as Raila takes charge of ODM - Jaluo dot Kom newsletter 4-09-2008
- ^ The Standard, October 11, 2007: PNU agrees on joint nominations
- ^ Daily Nation, November 19, 2007: PNU parties flout election deal
- International Herald Tribune, September 16, 2007: Kenyan president announces new party affiliation for re-election bid
- BBC News, September 16, 2007: Kenya president eyes re-election
On February 28, 2008 through a mediation team headed by former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, the PNU government reached at a deal with the ODM to share power. ODM is headed by Raila Odinga. The power sharing deal was the first one of its kind in Africa.
