Former Raila man named Wipers deputy party leader

Former National Assembly Deputy Speaker, Farah Maalim, has been endorsed as the Wiper Democratic Movement deputy party leader.

Maalim, a vocal member of the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD), was unveiled during Wiper’s National Governing Council at the Kasarani gymnasium in Nairobi on Tuesday, December 13.

Maalim, who decamped from Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), upon acceptance of the party position, endorsed the Wiper leader, Kalonzo Musyoka, as the CORD’s presidential flag bearer.

He said that Kalonzo has what it takes to lead the country and should fly the opposition’s flag in the 2017 elections as they aim at unseating Jubilee’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Samoei Ruto.

Maalim, a former Member of Parliament for Lagdera, is also said to be eyeing the Garissa Township parliamentary seat, currently held by National Assembly Majority Leader, Aden Duale, of Jubilee.

Maalim was the Member of Parliament for Lagdera Constituency in Garissa County from 1993 to 1998 before making a return in 2008.

He contested for the Garissa Senatorial seat on an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) ticket in the 2013 polls but lost to the incumbent Yusuf Haji.

The entry of Maalim into the race for Garissa Township parliamentary seat will spark one of the toughest contests in the parliamentary elections in the August 8, 2017 polls pitting the Jubilee Party and the CORD coalition.

The former legislator will now lead the Wiper’s offensive in North Eastern Kenya even as the party tries to make inroads in an area pre-dominantly inclined to the ODM party.

Until his defection from Orange House, Maalim was ODM’s party disciplinary committee chair.

He led the party in the expulsion of 13 members who were deemed to have defected to other parties including former Secretary General, Ababu Namwamba, Mvurya Governor, Salim Mvurya, and nominated Member of Parliament Isaac Mwaura.

Early October, Maalim was involved in a physical fight with a former Somali Minister, Gele Jama, in action captured on CCTV.

It took the intervention of elders from the larger Aulian clan on the Kenya-Somalia border to reconcile the two leaders.

The elders, led by their chairman, Sultan Hamud Sheikh, termed the bitter altercation as unfortunate and which should never have happened.