Meru at crossroads ahead of 2022 polls – Weekly Citizen

With the clock fast ticking towards the 2022 general election, the greater Meru region with about one million registered voters finds itself at crossroads on who to back for the presidency.
On one hand, William Ruto has visited the region several times to launch development projects as well as fundraisers as he eyes the bloc vote.
The ODM leader Raila Odinga on the other hand is also rallying his troops in the region in his bid to win voters, who have in the past three elections rejected his bid, to his side.

Raila and Uhuru

But the March 9 2018 handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila has changed the political dynamics and some Meru voters are now toying with the idea of backing the ODM leader for the top seat if endorsed by Uhuru.
However, the Raila versus Ruto rivalry has left the voters confused and was the reason Meru governor Kiraitu Murungi and Senator Mithika Linturi challenged the president and his deputy to act to salvage the Jubilee party.
Speaking during the burial of Linturi’s father, a ceremony attended by Ruto, Kiraitu said as one of the architects of the merger of 13 political parties that formed Jubilee ahead of the 2017 general election, he was frustrated by the turn of events and was considering decamping.

Senator Linturi

“Jubilee has failed to give us direction. I feel a lot of pain and I’m perplexed. If you want to dissolve Jubilee, I will go back to my bus,” he said while referring to the party he contested the senatorial seat in 2013.
Kiraitu is among leaders in Mt Kenya who have embraced the handshake.
Ruto on his part has managed to rally a cross section of leaders in Meru to his side and they have vowed to reject any proposed referendum if, according to them, it goes against the provisions of the current constitution.
Their view is that the only way the review of the constitution can be carried out in Kenya is through parliamentary or popular initiatives.
Speaking in Meru county in the company of Ruto, the leaders said the constitution cannot be amended through kangaroo routes such as the Building Bridges Initiatives.
The MPs included Kathuri Murungi (Imenti South), Gichumu Githinji (Gichugu), John Paul (Igembe South), Mithika Linturi (Senator, Meru), Gitonga Murugara (Tharaka), Kubai Iringo (Igembe Central), Gichunge Kabeabea (Tigania East), Kanyuiyhia Mutunga (Tigania West), Halima Mucheke (nominated), Mugambi Rindikiri (Buuri) and former minister Jackson Kalweo.
According to Linturi, the BBI “has no legal backing and the initiative would lead to a referendum but only if parliament is coerced into owning it, that will be nothing but impunity”.

Ruto

The 11 MPs, at the same time, said residents of Central and Mt Kenya region would back the deputy president for presidency in 2022, saying the DP was well placed to take over the leadership of the country after Uhuru’s term comes to an end in 2022.
“As people of this county (Meru), we have decided to support Ruto for presidency in 2022 not because he has stood with Uhuru but because he is development conscious leader whose record is clear,” said Rindikiri.
Kalweo said no one would dissuade the people of Meru from supporting the leadership of the deputy president in 2022, noting that Ruto is committed on matters of development.
Raila on his part has the support of mostly former MPs from Meru and Tharaka-Nithi counties.
Last year the former legislators assured the ODM leader of their support in the 2022 presidential race.
In a joint statement read by former Tigania West MP Kilemi Mwiria, the leaders, under the name Ameru handshake forum, praised Raila and the historic deal he made with the president.
The 12 former MPs from the Upper Eastern counties spoke to journalists after meeting Raila at his Capitol Hill office in Nairobi.
They also asked Raila and the president to visit the region to ensure the impact of the handshake is felt throughout the counties.
In the annulled August 8 2017 election, Raila polled 55,602 votes out of 702,776 in Meru and 10,355 of the 213,157 votes in Tharaka-Nithi.
Mwiria was accompanied by former Meru deputy governor Raphael Muriungi, former MPs Petkey Miriti (Nithi), Gideon Irea (Central Imenti), David Karithi (Tigania West) and Joseph Mwenda (Igembe South), among others.
But the cracks in Jubilee are not just in Meru as Ukambani is too experiencing the problem.
A few days ago former Kibwezi MP Kalembe Ndile asked the Director of Criminal Investigations office to investigate Jubilee Party for not being transparent and honest to their members, even after their promises to pay them back Sh30 million which never happened after bringing their party to Jubilee.

Ndile

Ndile threatened to walk out of the Jubilee following what he termed as a failure on the part of the presidency.
He revealed details on the deals that had been struck between Uhuru, Ruto and those who defected from opposition parties during the 2017 elections season.
The former MP threatened to walk out of the ruling party if the president failed to give him a government job as agreed on the alleged deal.
“I was promised a job in government once Jubilee captured the second term but now I have been left in the cold,” he said.
He went on to lay bare the internal wrangles within the party which he blamed on the presidency having relinquished their reins at the party’s leadership.
Other politicians from Ukambani who claim to have been sidelined by the president after swearing their allegiance to the ruling party are former Kitui senator David Musila, who quit Wiper party where he was the national chairman.
Back to Meru, a third force is emerging after East Africa Legislative Assembly legislator Mpuru Aburi formed a new political outfit called the National Ordinary People Empowerment Union, which is popularly referred as to as Noopeu.
Aburi, a seasoned politician, is now a political ally of Trade cabinet secretary Peter Munya and a fierce critic of Kiraitu despite campaigning for him in 2017.

EALA MP Apuri Mpuru

Aburi won the seat in but was trounced by Josphat Gichunge in 2017.
Noopeu in Kimeru language means fast and dramatic disappearance of an object.
Aburi and other leaders opposed to Kiraitu are using it as a rallying call to ostensibly end the shrewd politician’s political career.
They are using the word to describe how Kiraitu will be ousted at a lightning speed.
Aburi coined the catchy word in which he has managed to rope in Munya and several other politicians.
Aburi campaigned for Kiraitu, a seasoned politician who has not lost any election he contested since 1992.
While Kiraitu trounced Munya for the governor seat, Aburi lost the parliamentary race and got a consolation through an EALA appointed through Jubilee Party.
“I came to realise the tortoise is far much better than the leopard. Now the beast is eating our animals and people are crying all over. He should work for the people of Meru,” Aburi said.
He said Munya’s style of leadership is that of shooting from the hip. He ruffled many feathers in the government when he was the council of governors chairman.
Munya recently told off Ruto over claims that he was involved in an assassination plot with other three CSs from Central Kenya.
For now, Aburi has teamed up with Munya and Linturi to launch an onslaught against Kiraitu.
He is said to be building his political base ahead of 2022 and probably team up with Munya’s PNU.
Aburi perhaps realising his 2017 mistake has decided to stick to Munya. In the last elections, he campaigned against Munya who comes from the same Tigania East constituency, where the former governor got many of his votes, against Kiraitu, who is an Imenti.
Wealthy businessmen from as far as Mombasa and outside the country are funding Aburi in his smear campaign against Kiraitu.
Just like he did to Munya he has been telling Merus how Kiraitu is worse than Munya and how he is plundering county resources.