Linking Ochieng win to Raila, Ruto feud is abuse to intelligence of voters

NASA's Raila Odinga and DP William Ruto.

Nothing speaks to the changing character of the Kenyan voterthan the election results in Ugenya Constituency, Siaya County last week. Those who know me well know I am a card-carrying citizen of that great county. Outside my county of residence and my home county, I have been to Siaya more times than any other county. I have attended many cultural festivals there, been feted by good friends into the wee hours of many mornings, held several fundraisings there in support of education and generally just enjoyed sights and sounds of Siaya, which I must say has some of the friendliest people in this country; people who also “eat life” with a big spoon. The win by David Ochieng therefore came as no surprise to me.

Naturally, in true Kenyan fashion, many wanted to brand this as a battle of the giants, Raila Vs Ruto. It made better headlines. For ODM, whose doyens started this branding and pushed it to the very end, this was a useful campaign trick, it had worked in previous elections in several places. The “a vote for Ochieng is a vote for Ruto” was a popular campaign mantra until Mr Ochieng won and then ODM started backtracking, saying MDG was a NASA affiliate anyway.