TNA clears Wanjohi, Kuria to contest

The National Alliance (TNA) party has settled on controversial political activist Moses Kuria and ousted MP George Wanjohi as the Jubilee alliance's candidates for the Gatundu South and Mathare parliamentary by-elections respectively.

This followed successful party primaries in the two constituencies held on Monday ahead of the August 7 mini-polls.

In Gatundu South, where the seat which fell vacant after the death of Ngugi Nyumu, Kuria beat the widow of the late MP by garnering 8,343 votes against Mrs Joyce Wanjiku Ngugi's 6,685.

Mr wanjohi, who lost the Mathare seat after a successful court petition filed by Orange Democratic Movement's Steven Kariuki, was controversially announced the winner despite figures not being available.

"In Mathare constituency primaries Wanjohi emerged the winner in a contest of four aspirants. The turnout was not very impressive, but all the same he managed to trounce his opponents with Gabriel Muthuma coming in second. Muthuma had way below 50 per cent of the votes cast," said TNA Secretary General Onyango Oloo at a Press conference yesterday at the party headquarters.

Three aspirants – Gabriel Muthuma, Ndung'u wa Grace and Jackson Mwangi who were eyeing the TNA ticket to contest the Mathare by-election recently warned the party against issuing direct nomination to Wanjohi.

City legislators had said subjecting Wanjohi to a nomination after a long court battle would be unfair. 

Wanjohi will now face ODM's Kariuki and former Youth Enterprise Fund boss Gor Semelang'o who is an independent candidate.

However, the Mathare nominations  were rocked by protests on Monday after an aspirant claimed that his name was deliberately struck off the nomination list.

Samson Ojiayo said his name was removed from the list by the party headquarters, denying him an opportunity to seek the party ticket.

"His name was not in the list and by extension it could not be in the ballot because he failed to comply with the conditions set by the party to all the candidates, including failling to raise nomination fees," Oloo said.

Oloo said the successful primaries demonstrated TNA's flourishing democracy.