Losers in Nakuru primaries call for joint Uhuru campaign plan

Transport Licensing Appeals Board Chairman John Mututho addressing a press conference at Merica Hotel in Nakuru County on August 8, 2016. Photo: Joseph Kipsang/Standard

Independent candidates in Nakuru County want their Jubilee competitors to join them in a unified presidential campaign premised on peace building.

Speaking a day after Deputy President William Ruto addressed campaign meetings in Kuresoi South and Rongai constituencies, John Mututho, who is contesting the governor’s seat as an independent candidate, claimed that independents had been labelled renegades yet they were backing President Kenyatta’s re-election.

“We are supporting Uhuru and Ruto’s re-election and we must not be treated like renegades out to spoil the party for the President,” he said yesterday.

 

Peace campaigns

Mr Mututho said he had mobilised a team of 1,600 people to spearhead Uhuru’s campaign in the county using his personal resources.

“An effective Uhuru and Ruto campaign in the county must be steered by a peace-making agenda and not by sabotaging independent candidates,” he said, adding that independents were supported by at least 70 per cent of the county’s voters.

He called on Jubilee candidates in the county’s 11 constituencies to work with the independent candidates in formulating a joint and practical peace building campaign during and after the forthcoming general election to foster cohesion and integration in the cosmopolitan county.

His sentiments came against the backdrop of preparations for a major Jubilee rally scheduled for Afraha Stadium next week.

But Jubilee candidates in the county have maintained their stand for six-piece voting, saying independents should be treated as the opposition.

Speaking at a separate political event, Lee Kinyanjui, the Jubilee Nakuru candidate for governor, termed independents as losers who had nothing new to offer voters.

“If the independent candidates are supporting Uhuru’s re-election, that is fine with us, but they must not pretend that we have the same agenda when it comes to local seats,” Mr Kinyanjui said.

Mututho, who lost in the Jubilee primaries but returned as an independent candidate, said their decision to contest as independents must not be mistaken for opposing President Kenyatta’s re-election.

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