Jubilee, Azimio lay strategy to retain Uhuru's Rift Valley vote

Jubilee Party Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni (left) with Kajiado Senatorial aspirant Moses ole Sekuda, Kajiado MP Aspirant ole Simel and Kajiado Central MP aspirant Moses Birisha at the Party Headquarters in Nairobi on March 11, 2022. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

As President Uhuru Kenyatta prepares to roll out a major campaign to recover lost ground in the Mt Kenya region, he has laid out a quiet plan to retain ground in the Rift Valley province.

Though a Deputy President William Ruto stronghold, the region has a huge chunk of Mount Kenya diaspora vote in Nakuru, Laikipia, Kajiado and Uasin Gishu counties.

In the 2017 election, Jubilee won majority seats in Rift Valley leaving Ford Kenya and ODM in the NASA coalition to scavenge a few seats in Trans Nzoia and Turkana counties.

It was the same in 2013 when two Jubilee partners, Ruto’s URP and Uhuru’s TNA, ran away with the Rift Valley vote.

Uhuru's strategy now is to retain seats his TNA party won in Rift Valley in 2013 and only cede ground to his deputy on the seats URP won in that election.

TNA had an upper hand in Nakuru where it won seven of the eleven seats.

Kanu scooped two seats to leave one each for URP and ODM. In Kajiado, TNA won four of the five seats and in Laikipia, it got two of the three seats.

The two seats not taken by TNA went to ODM. In Samburu, TNA won two seats to leave one for URP.

Uhuru's strategy in the Rift Valley is to do a door-to-door, Nyumba-Kumi type of campaign before he hits the ground in an open campaign.

Leading the door-to-door campaigns in the central Rift is one-time Molo MP Njenga Mungai.

He was area MP from 1988 to 1997. In the mid-1990s, he played a leading role in what was called GEMA-KAMATUSA talks, a door-to-door campaign aimed at cultivating harmonious co-existence of the communities in the Rift Valley.

Confirmed assignment

He has quietly been put on the Azimio national campaign team with a specific assignment to retain what was TNA/Uhuru vote in the vast Nakuru.

In the proposed BBI changes, Nakuru was to get five new constituencies in what was the TNA zone in 2013.

The then Jubilee Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta of TNA and his running mate William Ruto of URP lift their hands in a show of unity in 2013. [File, Standard]

Mungai confirmed his assignment and admitted playing the lead role in organising last Saturday's State House meeting between President Kenyatta and 3500 elders and elected leaders from Mount Kenya and its diaspora.

“Yes it is true I am doing Nyumba Kumi-type campaign to consolidate Mount Kenya vote in the Rift Valley and have it in Azimio basket through Jubilee,” he said on the telephone.

He said Mount Kenya's vote in Rift Valley is about 1.6 million which is more votes than Murang’a and Nyeri have.

“You can’t ignore such a huge vote and the president has assured us of his support to debunk the myth that Rift Valley is entirely UDA."

The former MP was the beneficiary of the last-minute Kenneth Matiba wave that swept through Mount Kenya, Nairobi and parts of the Rift Valley in the first multi-party elections in 1992.

Matiba's Ford Asili scooped five of the six seats in Nakuru.

In Kajiado, the strategy is slightly different as Azimio intends to combine the comparative strengths of ODM and what was the TNA vote to stem the UDA tide.

Kajiado North, South and West have huge Mount Kenya diaspora which enabled TNA to win majority seats in 2013.

ODM is strong in Kajiado Central and East and has won there since 2007.

As part of the strategy, Kajiado Governor Joseph ole Lenku last week defected from Jubilee to ODM with an intention of keeping the vote in Kajiado South where he comes and having fingers on ODM strongholds in Central and East.

Azimio is looking for a running mate to bring in the Mount Kenya diaspora vote in Kajiado North and West.

Former Kajiado North MP Moses Sakuda is to conduct door-to-door campaigns.

Sakuda was the first of the two MPs to be voted in on the TNA ticket in 2012. The other one was the late Kangema MP Tirus Ngahu. Both were elected in by-elections. 

Like his father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Uhuru has a special attachment to Nakuru.

Work on the construction of an international class airport in the town is going on to ensure the president launches it before he leaves in August.

In the last years of his presidency, Mzee Kenyatta literally shifted office to Nakuru’s State House.

In 1976, legendary US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had to travel to Nakuru after Mzee Kenyatta declined the request by US State Department to meet him in Nairobi.