Moses Kuria has ruffled very many feathers in his rise to the top

When Kuria returned to Kenya on the eve of the 2007 elections, he swiftly aligned himself with the Party of National Unity, which President Mwai Kibaki had crafted as his re-election vehicle. It is from this perch as a self-declared party spokesperson that Kuria began to develop his treasury of insults. Ever since, he has offended anyone who needed to take offence and has been variously described as loose cannon with a foot in the mouth.

His entry into parliamentary politics was something short of a miracle: The MP for Gatundu South died. Kuria muscled out his competition in the by-election and was declared elected unopposed in 2013. He was re-elected in 2017 on a Jubilee Party ticket, but emerged early as an opponent of the rapprochement between former President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga in the aftermath of the disputed 2017 election.