News Analysis by Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.
AFTER the colorful promulgation ceremony, which ushered the new constitution last week people appeared to have settled down strategizing how to clinch the various key and middle cadre positions, offered in the new system.
Political parties and their local operatives are also gearing to go for the best. Key positions, which seemed to be attracting hot contests, are those of the Senate seats, County Governors and deputy governors.
The fact that the lucrative ministerial clots will no longer be the exclusive preserve of the parliamentarians, and that the President has the prerogative right and power to pick his Ministers from anywhere including the private sector has made parliamentary seats less attractive to many.
The majority f the incumbent MPs are rumored to be contemplating switching from contesting seats in the August House to the more covenanted Senate, and County governorship.
Among the current MPs in Luo-Nyanza whop are rumored to be in the process of shifting from parliamentary representation to the Senate include the Bondo MP Dr.Oburu Oginga, who is also an Assistant Finance Minister, James Aggrey Orengo, who is the Lands Minister, Dalmas Otieno,the current Public Service Minister.
But none has come forward to confirm the rumors making the round like bush fire. But the new constitution is not silent over this. It stipulates that if the President decides to appoint a sitting MP,, the legislator is bound to resign and relinquish his parliamentary seat for the Ministerial clot. And as such the person honored with cabinet appointment loses nothing, and it would even be better for the MPs to defend their seat and once elected could easily attract the eyes of the President to appoint them to his cabinet depending on their previous experiences and their abilities.
Some of the current MPs, however, have been heard in private conversations, saying that the next cabinet appointment would be highly competitive because the President might be forced to source his cabinet team from the academia and successful CEOs in the private sector and professionalism. Some of the next Ministers could be fished from the various institutions of higher learning.
One area in Luo-Nyanza where the Senate seat reserved for women representative has attracted the highest caliber is the Homa-Bay County in the greater Southern Nyanza.. Four names of prominent women in the region are being fronted by the electorate, as the possible contestants, though none has declared her interest in the seat.
Ms Millie Odhiambo, the ODM nominated MP led the park as the possible party nomination for this seat, which covered six parliamentary constituencies, which included Mbita, Gwassi, Ndhiwa, Rangwe, Karachuonyo and Kasipul Kabondo. There is the possibility that the region could attract one more extra parliamentary seat when the proposed additional 82extra parliamentary constituencies come to force within the next two months time.
Odhiambo hails from Mbita constituency in Mbita district. Born in the political family of the late Harrison Odhiambo Opiyo, who represented Ndhiwa in the defunct Nyanza Regional Assembly between 1963 and 1967 when the Majimbo Constitution brokered at the 1962 Lancaster House was abolished and scrap. Her father for many years was associated with KANU at the district branch level and died in a drowning incident whole serving as the party branch secretary for South Nyanza branch.
A trained lawyer by profession and highly eloquent, Odhiambo is considered as one of the few firebrands in the 10th Parliament, though she is a moderate politician who contributes a lot during the debates on various important matters and Bills of national importance.
Another prominent name is that of Mrs Rosylin Onyuka, the retired former Nyanza Provincial Director of Education {PDE]. She too hails from Kasipul-Kabondo constituency in South Rachuonyo district.
What is likely to complicate the matter for both Onyuka and Odhiambo is that they both hails from Mbita.Onyuka is the daughter of the late Ex-Senior Chief Damianus Ajwang’a, who served as the location Chief for{Kasigunga} Gembe Location in both colonial and independent governments
Onyuka has served as a secondary school teacher, headmistress of the various Girls Secondary Schools in the region, AEO, DEO before being promoted to the position of the Provincial Director of Education, a position which she served with seal. She commands the most populous Rachuonyo region and seemed to be in a better position to clinch the Senate seat if no other aspirant emerged from the same region with the same reputation and popularity.
The other possible contestant is Mrs ConsilataYambo, alias Nyaseme who hails from Gwassi.She is an executive with the Israel National airline, the El-Al in Nairobi and had contested the Gwassi parliamentary seat in 2007 and lost during the ODM primaries. She is said to be tough and experienced politician, but would need a lot of public relations in order to market herself throughout the vast region, because she is said to be unknown in other areas like in the Rachuonyo region and Rangwe.
Another possible contestant is Mrs Monica Amolo, a perennial parliamentary election loser in Ndhiwa constituency. He popularity even in her own Ndhiwa home turf is questionableas her attempt to unseat the abrasive Ndhiwa MP Joshua Orwa Ojode on two previous elections using her contact with politicians from Siaya and Kisumu region had hit the rock in 2007,she garned about 14,000 votes against Ojode’s 48,000 but owing to an error made by the presiding officer who announced her name by mistake as the winner, she moved to the High Court to claim the seat which she never won. He case was summarily dismissed.
She is the second wife of a prominent Kisumu practicing medic Dr. Amolo from Kanyikela Location, Ndhiwa district who was for many years the Hospital Superintendent at the New Nyanza General Hospital {Russia} but now practicing in town. Her background is however, unknown. What is known about her is that she is a political associate of the Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo and a friend of Mrs Ida Raila Odinga.
MONICA Amolo unlike the three other aspirants lacked the safe home constituency as she is said to be not very popular with women folk in her Ndhiwa home turf due to her controversial kind of politics.
There could be more prominent women planning to join the same race. As the situation stands now, no prominent woman is being mentioned in Rachuonyo North and in Rangwe constituencies, but as the time go, more are expected to plunge themselves into the race in the near future.
What is certain is that the three women with the background in Luo-Abasuba communities will have the edge due to their own past performance and family backgrounds.
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com