Raila factor in Luhya politics – Weekly Citizen

Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi may have been right. For the umpteenth time in the recent past, the ANC chief reminded William Ruto that his presumed inroads in Western region are purely commercial; that all his allies were interested in was his fat wallet, period.

Fast forward the just-concluded Kibra by-election, a total vindication of Mudavadi’s ‘fears’ for the DP. On the campaign trail, the Luhya leadership in Ruto’s kitchen cabinet danced themselves lame, the likes of former Kakamega senator Boni Khalwale, National Assembly chief whip Benjamin Washiali, Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa and his Webuye West counterpart Dan Wanyama horribly failing to shepherd the populous Luhya vote to Ruto’s project, former footballer McDonald Mariga.

Instead, Khalwale and Barasa suffered the ignominy of being humiliated by Orange Democratic Movement supporters, in full glare of cameras. The two vocal politicians were separately slapped and chased away for disparaging the Orange party’s leadership at the behest of Ruto’s Tanga Tanga faction of Jubilee Party.

Worse still, Ruto’s own candidate – Mariga – also suffered the same fate, chased away on the voting day by rowdy youth who would not hear of anything anti-bedroom. Like Khalwale and Barasa, Mariga is a Luhya. Even with Luhyas forming the largest chunk of registered voters, Mariga was thoroughly outsmarted by the eventual winner, ODM’s Imran Okoth.

Just what went wrong? Opinion is sharply divided over Ruto’s real intentions in the Kibra mini-poll. Though it is generally agreed that Kibra was a dress rehearsal for 2022 between Ruto and Raila Odinga, pundits now aver the DP was keen on harnessing – if not weighing – the mood of the core Luhya Nation in Western.

Wetangula

The script goes that Mariga’s triumph would have seen Ruto kill two birds with one stone: embarrassing Raila on the one hand, and solidify his forays in Western region on the other. On the bigger picture, the Kibra race had been billed a referendum vote pitting the DP against the opposition chief.

So high were the stakes that the Luhya factor saw Ruto handpicking Mariga as Mudavadi elected to go for former Raila campaign manager Eliud Owalo, a Luo. Still, Ford Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula cast his lot with Khamis Butichi, also a Luhya.

From the outset, Mudavadi’s move to handpick Owalo was a miscalculation worth pointing out. The ANC boss may have had the right intentions of plucking a top Raila confidante to do the trick – the invaluable secrets, intrigues and stuff like that.

To Mudavadi, the attractive Luhya population would easily gel with the prospect of teaming up with mashemeji, Owalo presenting himself as a better option for the neglected Luo masses in Kibra. In the end, this was not to be. Oblivious of fate’s other plans, Owalo would finish a distant third at a paltry 5,000 votes. Things were even worse for Wetang’ula, with his candidate taking home a measly 200 votes.

Mudavadi

Back to Ruto, it was all systems go from day one. A refined political schemer of enviable proportions, the DP may have seen Ken Okoth’s demise coming, well in advance for that matter. Long before the then Kibra MP returned from abroad as he battled deadly cancer, Mariga was pictured – together with his sibling Victor Wanyama – getting cosy with the DP at his official residence in Karen.

It was here that Mariga gifted Ruto a football jersey complete with the soccer star’s signature inscription, ‘Mariga 17’. Soon after, the DP would grace the unveiling of a soccer tourney in the sprawling Kawangware slums.

Then came the ultimate shocker. Mariga the Jubilee choice for Kibra to fill the seat rendered vacant upon Okoth’s death late July. This happened against a strong tide at the party secretariat, with secretary general Raphael Tuju casting doubt on Jubilee’s participation in the mini-poll, thanks to the Raila-Uhuru Kenyatta handshake.

A determined Ruto would press on, going all the way to install Mariga as the Jubilee candidate against a backdrop of an unsupportive establishment. With his wish in place, Ruto would take his step further, canvassing for the president’s endorsement for his candidate, albeit with noticeable ‘body language’ at State House lawns that spoke volumes of Uhuru’s disinterest.

DP William Ruto with former Kakamega Senator Bonny Khalwale when he defected to jubilee meeting, Malinya

On the ground, Ruto dispatched Khalwale, Washiali and Barasa to lead Mariga’s campaign, with the trio doing a relatively good job mobilising supporters from the Luhya community. With the DP’s inexhaustible resources, Khalwale and crew traversed the constituency rooting for one of their own – Mariga.

To be fair to them, Mariga’s campaign drew respectable crowds, even surpassing ODM’s. So were Owalo’s green and white incursions. Surprisingly, the by-election’s common enemy – Raila’s ODM – appeared to take a low profile dimension. But this writer knew it was a tactical retreat, if not a different game plan.

Raila’s foot soldiers had elected to comb through the width and breadth of this largely informal settlement, securing Baba’s bedroom with razor blade precision.