Booker Omole: This is why we have called for a national party Congress

While addressing the party members, who now have been identified as the Majority, after a faction led by former leaders went to bed with the government, Booker Omole, the current party Vice-Chairman, has spelt out the purpose of the Congress, the ideals the party believes in, the call for a unified approach and the need for loyalty and integrity in one's dealings with the Party.

Omole, a firebrand leader who has been at the forefront of championing for the rights of Kenyans and the idealization of a just and fair nation, also lashed out at the leaders of the Minority faction, who he said had betrayed the movement and had put their personal needs ahead of the general goodwill of the people.

While also asking members to rally together and advance the cause of Kenya's past freedom fighters, he said: "The weighty task is party building, to fulfil our historic mission in great honour of our forbearers and to secure the future of the homeland. The most urgent task is to complete our independence by building on the legacy of our hero of independence, Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi, and to advance the course of socialism."

Booker also called for the members to uphold the party's solidarity, slamming party unfaithfulness and greed, while also asking the members to scrutinise themselves and live up to the best versions of themselves.

"Members must uphold the Party's solidarity and unity, be loyal to and honest with the Party, match words with deeds, firmly oppose all factions and small-clique activities, and oppose double-dealing and scheming of any kind," he said.

"Members must earnestly engage in criticism and self-criticism and boldly expose and correct shortcomings and mistakes."

Omole also added that the Communist Party of Kenya of the Majority endeavours to dissect the underlying causes of the current crisis plaguing the Party, stressing that membership must glean insights from the Party's internal crisis, fostering introspection to fortify the Party's ideological integrity rooted in the Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Addressing the members, Kinuthia Ndung’u, who is the Party's Interim Chairperson of the Majority faction also added that the Party must be the advanced detachment of the working class, reiterating that it must consist of the best elements, class-conscious and resolute members of the working class.

"It is being with the peasant farmers in Gem and all other regions sharing their successes and failures. It is joining trade unions and clarifying our ideas as we combat reactionary views like economism," he said. 

"It is forming and joining co-operatives to empower the workers. It is organizing the Kenyan masses burdened with a high living cost and privatisation of public goods to get material gains as we explain our alternative."

Ndung'u also stressed the need for the party to identify with the masses, saying that, it is only by listening to the people, addressing their concerns and solving the problems, that the party's ideological foundations could be realized.

"We cannot call CPK a vanguard organization if we have no link with the masses. Our theory only becomes a material force once it grips the masses; this is only through going into their midst, making efforts to solve their problems, drawing upon their experience, listening to their ideas, synthesizing these ideas and going back to them in an endless cycle to propagate and explain our ideas until they embrace them as their own, " he stressed.

Omole also castigated former leaders, who now lead the Minority faction, for joining forces with President Ruto, going to bed with the government and forgetting the cause - representing Kenya's poor and downtrodden.

"Their collusion with Ruto's camp, under the pretext of advancing the Party's interests, serves as a testament to the serious betrayal of our great party," he said. 

"Their actions epitomize a betrayal of Kenyan workers and rural poor, motivated by personal gain and political expediency."

The Communist Party of Kenya's second national Congress, to happen this weekend, will see thousands of delegates, drawn from all across the country and from various parts of the world, gather in Nairobi for an activity-packed two-day marathon.

It will then culminate with a massive reggae concert at Githurai 44, one of the epicentre of police brutality during the height of the anti-government protests.