The National Alliance (TNA) party brand that joined with Kalenjin based URP party to form the Jubilee Alliance is dead. President Uhuru’s strategists have allegedly registered a new party ahead of 2017 elections following several internally commissioned polls on the viability of using ‘TNA’ as the regime party in the coming elections.
The new party, refereed as ‘Jubilee Alliance’ is different from the coalition Jubilee Alliance currently ruling as it is not a coalition of any of the four main parties in government.
Jubilee Alliance, the ruling coalition, brings together Charity Ngilu’s NARC, Najib Balala’s Republican Council, Deputy President William Ruto’s URP and President Uhuru’s TNA.
The recently registered ‘Jubilee Alliance Party’ (JAP) however leaves out URP, which the deputy president has viciously resisted attempts to have it dissolved ahead of the 2017 elections.
TNA party was ‘rebranded’ in 2012 and captured the country’s imagination with its sophistication and sheer digital PR it brought to the art of campaigns in Kenya. However, unknown to many people, the TNA party as is currently is made up of just one ethnic community. Statistics has it that nine in every 10 parliamentarians in the 11th parliament on a TNA ticket are Kikuyus!
Geographically, TNA is a Kiambu, Murang’a and Nyeri counties party. But even in these regions, the once mighty political unit is fast fading, with revelations that several political players in that region have also registered own parties.