Kenyan lawyers are hours to electing their next male representative at the Judicial Service Commission.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission will on Thursday lead the election as lawyers pick their representative while voting from various regions.
In what is considered a two-horse race, top city lawyer Prof Tom Ojienda seeks to retain his seat against a challenge by former IPOA boss Macharia Njeru and lawyer Charles Ongoto.
Ojienda is seeking to retain his seat, which fell vacant after his first term expired on April 6, 2019. His challenger, Macharia Njeru is a man in social media.
Mr Charles Ongoto is bristling with confidence.
"I decided to contest because I do understand the problems we face in these courts," Mr Ongoto said while being interviewed by KTN News recently.
Amidst intensive campaign thought to be polished, intellectually-driven and based on elite values strange things are happening.
Just hours to the polling day, Kiambu-based human rights lawyer Gathii Irungu announced his withdrawal from the race. Irungu attributed his decision to the clamour to achieve regional balance.
Whilst Mr Irungu remained tight-lipped on who he will support; he promised to declare his support later on Wednesday.
The theatrics of the game have not ended with the surprise withdrawal. It even climaxed as Mr Ojienda may have fallen victim to the usual politics of 'Tanga Tanga' and 'Kieleweke' where factions allied to Deputy President William Ruto and President Uhuru Kenyatta respectively, have been locked in vicious political battles.
Manipulated and therefore misleading images have been shared on Twitter “showing” Prof Ojienda in a “meeting” with DP Ruto.
The turn of events have not gone well with his supporters and sympthisers who have slammed those circulating the images.
They have accused their rival camps of doctoring images to show that Prof Ojienda could be a project of the DP.
Dr Peter Mugo twitted: "I've seen a post by zack kinuthia claiming the second photo is of the William Ruto with Tom Ojienda ahead of JSCelections tomorrow. He just lifted the first photo (file) and photoshopped it. He wasn't supposed to stoop that low for a piece of bread."
Another user, Kijana Wa Facts posted: "They have picked the photo of DP Ruto and CS Wamalwas photo and swapped Wamalwa’s head with that of JSC rof Tom Ojienda. The JSC election is tomorrow. Kieleweke Idlers want to cook a situation where it will be seen as if it was the DP who influenced the JSC elections."
On the other side, Mr Njeru is lauded as a voice of reason and a representative of fresh ideas. Telling from the wording of his supporters, he is a 'David ready to slay the Goliath' against all odds.
"In line with my tradition of publicly declaring my choices of leadership, I hereby declare that on May 9, 2019, I will cast my vote for Macharia Njeru as LSK male Representative to JSC," said Donald B. Kipkorir.?
