From: Arrum Tidi
Date: Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 8:10 AM
Subject: Ruto URP could come out of the South Rift empty handed without a parliamentary seat after March 4, 2013.
To: “jaluo@jaluo.com” , “Sally H. Jacobs” , “citnewspaper@yahoo.com” , “editor@truthnewspaper.com” , “news@bbc.co.uk” , “oped@nytimes.com” , “opinion@nairobistar.com” , “InsideAfrica@CNN.com” , “news@ugandacorrespondnet.com”
THE ZONING OF EXCLUSIVE KALENJIN DISTRICT BY URP LEADERSHIP MIGHT BOOMERANG AND HAS RESULTED IN NOT EVEN ONE SINGLE PARTY PARLIAMENTARY ASPIRANT GETTING ELECTED UNOPPOSED.
News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo
IF the former Eldoret North MP William Ruto had a dream that by partitioning several Kalenjin districts in the South and North Rift to be his party’s exclusive votes zone would result in several of URP party candidates getting elected to parliament and senate seat unopposed, the exercise has since turned out to be a pipe dream, because not one aspirant had sailed through to parliament and other legislative bodies without strong opposition.
The strategy had even sealed off aspirants who wanted to contest the election in various constituencies on the TNA ticket, though this particular party is a senior partner within the Jubilee Alliance.. Balkanized together were districts like Nandi North, Nandi South in Nandi County, Uasin Gishu County, Elkeyo County, Baringo County,Kericho and Bomet Counties.
It is even worse in the South Rift region covering Kericho and Bomet Counties. Ruto’s original plan was to shelve his party’s loyalists so that some of them could sail through to the official nomination exercise without much opposition from candidates armed with tickets of other parties. It didn’t work that way.
In Kericho County alone, most of its seven parliamentary constituencies are so crowded by aspirants from other political parties. In the newly created Sigowet constituency, which is located in the lower part of the old Belgut, the URP candidate Justice Kemei, a former director with the Chemelil Sugar Company is facing five other aspirants. In the neighboring Ainamoi, the URP candidate Benjamin Lang’at the former area MP is facing six other candidates, all sponsored by other parties.
Justice Kemei is facing his fellow former Chemelil Sugar Company manager Eng. Richard Koech. All the other parties like KANU, UDF, ODM,, KNC,SAFINA, Kenya Labour Party and others have produced candidates who are giving William Ruto’s men sleepless nights.
The South Rift region who’s inhabitants are member of the industrious Kipsigis sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups is a votes-rich region.
William Ruto, the self-styled king-ping of the Kalenjin community, according to the locals had made a technical errors by accepting to play the second fiddle to the Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta as his presidential running-mate within the Jubillee Alliance, something which the members of the populous Kipsigis community seemed not to have approved.
Had Ruto contested the presidency on his own, he would have galvanized the majority of votes in this region very comfortably. But for close to three years, Ruto had traversed the region telling the voters that his name will definitely be on the presidential ballot papers before making an abrupt about turn. Ruto’s waves in these two region was so strong, and when he succumbed to a lesser position than the presidency, the voters have since viewed him as someone who is pursuing selfish interests and politics of deceits.
A section of the Kalenjin now blames Ruto for having mortgaged the community for personal aggrandizement, and this will definitely have an adverse repercussion and even affect the whole of the jubilee Alliance.
Waiting in the wings to benefit and harvest more parliamentary seats in the two regions is the 60 year old party of independence, KANU, which is campaigning under the umbrella, of the Amani Alliance led by the Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi.
Parliamentary constituencies at stake in the South Rift regions included Chepalungu, Bomet West, Bomet Eastm Konoin, Soitiki, Buret, Belgut, Sigowet, Ainamoi, Kipkellion West and Kipkellion East.
Two of William Ruto’s most loyal supporters in the two regions, namely Charles Keter {Belgut} and Isaac Ruto {Chepalungu} are not defending their parliamentary seats. The two have switched to Senate contest. Ruto is contesting the Bomet County Senate seat, while Keter is in the race for the Kericho County Senate seat.
The other party which stand to gain by way of harvesting several parliamentary seat at the expense of Ruto’s URP and its Jubillee alliance is the Orange Democratic Movement {ODM}, which is led by the Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The party has planted its candidates in early every constituency, and the local believes and maintains that Raila Odinga is a true reformist despite of concerted effort by the William Ruto and his cronies campaign to discredit him as someone who hates the Kipsigis people due to his role in the controversial mass eviction n of members of the community from the Mau Forest water catchment area.
Some of Raila’s supporters in the 10th parliament from the two regions had deserted him and run into the URP, hoping they would find an easy nomination to parliament and other legislative bodies with little opposition. But things have since turned in the opposite direction.
ODM has only one of its former MPs in the region who is defending his seat. He is Magerer Lang’at the former Mp for Kipkellion. The other former Mp Franklin Bett has since declined to defend his seat and is now playing a different role as the ODM election board chairman.
The last of the former ODM MPs in the region to ditch the party was Mrs Beatrice Kones, who is an Assistant Minister for |Home-Affairs. He has since lost her bid to be nominated the URP candidate for the Bomet seat, which she had inherited from her late husband the late Kipkalia Kones.
Urp’s other headache is the emergence MOI’S new waves of support among the Kipsigis people which appeared to be heading to cutting William Ruto’s influence and political clout in the region into size.
The retired President Daniel Moi is a man who no sane person can underrate his influence among the Kalenjin people; The community believes and maintains that Moi is the true professor of Kenya’s politics. He has since thrown his weight behind Musalia Mudavadi‘s Amani alliance which is using his old political slogan during the Nyayo era of of Peace Love and Unity.
The contest of political supremacy in the South Rift cannot be accurately be predicted at the moment, but from the looks of things, William Ruto will be the loser, due to the fact that the majority of the Kipsigis voters will not vote for Uhuru Kenyatta under all the circumstances.
Ends