Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna and Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir are set to takeover the running of the ODM party should Raila Odinga’s AUC candidature succeed.
The line-up is part of the proposal by internal party stalwarts keen to ensure smooth transition, following co-opting of party luminaries into the government.
The two are set to be elevated to deputy party leaders in changes that are expected to be effected during Friday’s Central Management Committee meeting.
The meeting will be chaired by Opposition chief Raila Odinga.
The duo will replace Cabinet Secretaries Hassan Joho (Blue Economy) and Wycliffe Oparanya (Cooperatives) who resigned after being named in President William Ruto’s broad-based government.
Technically, deputy party leaders will run ODM in the absence of the party leader, who goes into election in February next year for the top continental job.
The Star has been told of advance talks in the opposition outfit that will be rubber-stamped during Friday’s top organ meeting.
However, there are voices in the party who want the Nairobi senator to remain in his current position of the party’s spokesperson.
Contacted, Sifuna expressed shock that his stellar performance as secretary general was being used to hold him back and scuttle his ambition to ascend to deputy party leader post.
“I can do just as well in any other role. The role is as good as the person occupying it,” Sifuna said.
In the changes that are largely retaining the seats to regions which had them initially, Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi is tipped to succeed Sifuna as the secretary general.
Osotsi who is serving his second term in Parliament, was the secretary general in Musalia Mudavadi’s ANC party, before the two parted ways.
The lawmaker then decamped to ODM where he won his first elective seat as the Vihiga senator.
In the 12th Parliament, Osotsi was nominated to the National Assembly by ANC.
The lawmaker is poised to benefit from the ring-fencing of the posts to regions that give Western the powerful SG post.
Orange House sources also indicated that Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga could replace Treasury CS John Mbadi, as the ODM National chairperson.
Wanga like Mbadi, comes from Homa Bay county.
Some quarters were however talking of divided opinion between Wanga and Senator Moses Kajwang’.
Migori Governor Ochillo Ayacko’s name was also being mentioned as a possible candidate for the chairmanship.
Women leaders have in the recent days piled pressure on the party to consider gender in the top echelons of the party, where crucial decisions are made.
Apart from ex-senator Agnes Zani who deputises Sifuna as party’s SG, the rest of the executive positions is a boys-club with female voices conspicuously missing.
Speaking at Parliament building, the MPs led by Likoni MP Mishi Mboko and her Kisumu West counterpart Rosa Buyu insisted that it is time to have a woman in the top echelon of the party.
“We know we have many capable women leaders in ODM who have remained steadfast with the party. We are appealing that one of the top positions be reserved for a woman leader,” Mishi said.
“We want to see a woman leader sitting at the National Executive Committee or the Central management Committee of the party.”
Buyu said the top leadership of the Orange party has for long been a reserve of men with women being left out.
“We know Azimio and by extension ODM, has been in the forefront in fighting for the two-thirds, we also know that there are vacancies in the party,” Buyu said.
“We would like the party leadership to give one of the four positions to a woman. The woman we are fronting is her Excellency Gladys Wanga.”
Samburu West MP Lesuuda Naisula who was elected on Kanu, said Wanga has done a lot for the ODM party, and made the outfit vibrant in Homa Bay where she has been the party chairperson.
“Many a time, photos are taken of ODM top organs meetings, it is always men. We want women at the top decision making tables of the parties,” Naisula said.
