Daggers drawn as Jubilee, CORD all set for by-election

By Abdikadir Sugow      

Former Prime Minister and leader of the Coalition for Reform Democracy (CORD) Raila Odinga will lead a spirited campaign against President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Alliance to recapture the Makueni Senate seat.

The first by-election since the March 4 General Election is turning out to be a do-or-die battle for both coalitions – and by extension the Wiper Democratic Movement  — with only 30 days left before Makueni voters cast their ballots to elect a new Senator.

And Raila’s entry into the campaign fray comes despite calls by a section of MPs to have him – together with former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka – keep off politics in order to get a retirement package.

Kamba leaders have been active behind the scenes and in public, drawing up strategies and whipping up emotions ahead of the July 22 polls to secure the seat, which fell vacant following the mysterious death of lawyer Mutula Kilonzo.

Spearheading the CORD onslaught to recapture the seat are Kamba political heavyweights led by Kalonzo and the region’s political strategist, Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama.

“The Makueni seat is for Wiper and CORD to lose,” a confident Muthama told The Standard on Sunday in an interview, declaring that Raila, Kalonzo and Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula will lead a formidable campaign to recapture the Makueni seat in honour of Mutula.

Despite CORD oozing confidence, former MPs Philip Kaloki (Kibwezi) and Peter Kiilu (Makueni) are also taking a shot under the umbrella of the Deputy President William Ruto-led United Republican Party (URP), as the ‘Iron Lady of Kamba’ Charity Ngilu, Kaiti MP Gideon Ndambuki and former MP Kiema Kilonzo front a National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) ‘third force’.

Local dynamics

Kiilu last week boasted that CORD should prepare to embrace a humiliating defeat in the by-election, claiming that the candidates being fronted by Wiper cannot politically match their Jubilee opponents because of new local dynamics after the March 4 elections and that the locals were not ready to vote in ‘foreigners’.

Former Kilome MP John Harun Mwau, who lost to Mutula in the March 4 elections, stands out as the lone ranger with his Party of Independent Candidates of Kenya (PICK). Still smarting from the recent electoral loss, CORD is leaving nothing to chance. The CORD leadership is grinding the axe for a political battle royale to regain its stranglehold of Kambaland politics.

CORD and Wiper leaders are all but sure of securing the Makueni seat, although party strategists have been keeping the choice of their nominee a closely-guarded secret.

However, Kalonzo revealed on Friday that Mutula’s daughter, Kethi, a lawyer who captured national attention with a flawless performance during CORD’s petition against Uhuru Kenyatta at the Supreme Court, would be the woman to beat in the Makueni by-election.

Kethi herself had kept pundits guessing when asked whether she is in the race during a meeting along the corridors of the Milimani High Court in Nairobi, only saying that she needed to be persuaded to join politics and run for any political seat, including the one left by her father.
“Mpaka nitongozwe. Unajua mimi ni msichana” (I have to be courted and convinced to run, you see… I am a lady), Kethi explained, saying the decision on whether she would be the preferred candidate squarely lies in the hands of CORD leaders and the people of Makueni.
Kethi, who enjoys considerable national popularity, had earlier withdrawn from the race after her stepmother Nduku Kilonzo controversially declared she would also run for her late husband’s seat. Mutula’s widow’s announcement, which she would a few days later retract, was apparently at the prompting of Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu, who touched off a storm over her dabbling in politics, which her position as Cabinet Secretary strictly forbids her from engaging in.
Rival party
Nduku’s announcement was even more sensational in that she had indicated she would run on a party allied to the Jubilee, her husband’s political rivals and into whose government Ngilu had been incorporated.
Kethi immediately announced through her Twitter account that it would be ‘a curse to run against her step-mother and an even worse curse to be associated with a party affiliated to her late father’s political enemies. However, when her mother said she was dropping out of the race, Kethi indicated that she would be available, as Kamba leaders and residents went on a charm offensive, wooing voters and openly declaring she would be the flag-bearer.
Muthama, who had been away on a business trip to Hong Kong, returned to the country and hit the ground running, as seen at a public rally where CORD leaders minced no words about who, why and how the Makueni seat would be won.
Reaffirming that the entire CORD leadership including Raila, Kalonzo and Moses Wetangula would reinforce the Wiper campaign team in Makueni, Muthama left little room for guesswork.
The Senator declared: “All is well. The Wiper party through CORD is not desperately looking for a candidate. Wiper supporters should expect a candidate who suits them and respects them. Kalonzo is the undisputed bridge that one would have to cross to reach Wiper supporters.”