Five counties to have a decisive word on presidency

President Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga have trained their sights on Western Kenya, parts of Nyanza and Maasai land as they scramble for swing votes.

In particular, the counties of Bungoma, Kisii, Nyamira, Narok and Kajiado — which have a total of 2,181,038 votes between them — may decide whether Uhuru will serve his second term or if Raila becomes Kenya’s fifth president.

To show just how important these counties are in the October 17 repeat polls, both Jubilee and NASA have already visited Kajiado, Narok and Bungoma amid uncertainty over the elections as both sides of the political divide make demands of the IEBC.

Big defections

These five counties have also witnessed big defections, especially from NASA to Jubilee, by disgruntled leaders, most of who were beaten in the August 8 polls.

On Wednesday, President Kenyatta hosted a 10,000-strong delegation from Kisii and Nyamira counties at State House Nakuru where urged them to support his bid for re-election.

Uhuru sought to assure the Abagusii community that he had no problem with Chief Justice David Maraga over the Supreme Court ruling.

The President and his deputy had promised to deal with the judges who invalidated their re-election if they win the repeat polls.

Kisii and Nyamira have been key Raila strongholds, but Jubilee was able to get more elected leaders from the area at the expense of the opposition.

Keen to recapture his former strongholds, the Opposition leader made a trip to the two counties two days after the Supreme Court ruling to rubbish Uhuru’s aspersions that he would deal with Maraga and other Supreme Court judges if he is re-elected.

Maraga is a native of Nyamira County.

“In that outburst, Uhuru lost a significant number of votes in Gusii land. It is a wait and see situation,” said Dismas Mokua, a political analyst.

But Kitutu Chache North MP Jimmy Angweny says there was no threat on Maraga and the issue will not sway the votes the Kisiis gave to Uhuru in August.

“We will target an even higher vote this time round,” said Angwenyi.

In Bungoma, another Raila stronghold, the election of former governor Ken Lusaka as Senate speaker could offer more ammunition for Jubilee.

At stake here are 559,897 registered voters.

“We will use Lusaka’s election as Senate speaker to show the people that we are part of Jubilee administration. This time round, we are looking at 60 per cent of the votes,” said Dan Wanyama, Webuye West MP.

But Tongaren MP Eseli Simiyu said NASA will roll out a thorough campaign to limit Jubilee’s votes to less than 10 per cent. “The votes they are talking about were computer generated to aid President Kenyatta. They do not have votes in Bungoma and they know it, however much they pour millions of shillings in an attempt to buy people,” said Eseli.

Just like Kisii and Nyamira counties, Narok and Kajiado share an umbilical cord.

The politics of one affects the other.

A day after his victory was invalidated, President Kenyatta set out on a tour of Narok in a bid to consolidate his win. Two days later, he was in Kajiado with the same message.

He used the Narok tour to lash out at the Supreme Court for invalidating his win and asked voters to turn out in large numbers to prove the judges wrong.

Bungled polls

A few days later, Raila pitched camp in Narok where he accused Uhuru of refusing to implement the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) report.

Just as he did in the run-up to August 8, Raila promised to address perennial land ownership problem in Maasai land.

The Opposition leader had significantly higher of votes in Narok in 2013 with 118,623 votes against Uhuru’s 109,413.

Its elected leaders have rejected the results that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission stated Jubilee got in 2017.

“Like the bungled presidential election, tallying of votes for other seats was marred by massive irregularities. That’s why we don’t believe Uhuru garnered more votes than Raila in the Maa counties,” says Ledama ole Kina, the Narok Senator.

But NASA has lost to Jubilee two key leaders who run for the governor seat in the county — ODM’s Joseph Tiampati and Chama Cha Mashinani’s Patrick Ntutu.