BIG EMBARASMENT for Kibaki as Mary Wambui beats his favourite by far to clinch Othaya seat...
Ms MaryWambui Munene captured the Othaya parliamentary seat after a tense race with President Kibaki’s preferred successor, Mr James GichukiMugambi.
Wambui garnered 16,285 votes against city lawyer Peter King’ara’s 14,218 and Mugambi’s 10,972.
The TNA candidate became the first MP elect to be declared in Nyeri County where her party had urged supporters to vote “six piece suit”.
It was sweet victory for Wambui yesterday who has had to bear the humiliation of being denied access to presidential functions in the constituency while Mugambi, who is the chairman of the Othaya Development Association, enjoyed the limelight and got generous time to address the functions.
Just last week, an official opening of the Sh750 million Othaya Level 4 Hospital was put off to avoid a possible confrontation with the TNA candidate.
The week before, the President had questioned the TNA candidate’s ability to lead the constituency.
He had told a rally at Othaya: “You may have potential but not capability. How can you lead if you cannot understand a simple thing as road construction?’’
It will be interesting to see how the outgoing first family will take the body blow from Wambui’s win, especially after the President and his son Jimmy publicly opposed her candidature.
Lawyer King’ara who has been campaigning for over three years was running on a Narc ticket while Mugambi decamped to Saba Saba Asili after losing in the TNA primaries to Wambui.
Former presidential aide Esau Kioni, who was in the race on a Democratic Party ticket, said the interference by the first family only served to win Wambui a lot of sympathy votes.
underdog candidate.
“Coming from Mahiga as her, there were a lot of my supporters telling me they had to support their daughter who was being put through the grinder. In the end, she gained the edge as the underdog candidate,” Kioni said yesterday.
Meanwhile, preliminary results from Laikipia County showed that Public Works Assistant Minister Mwangi Kiunjuri and his Industrialisation counterpart Ndiritu Muriithi were trailing their rival in the gubernatorial race.
A first timer in politics, Mr Joshua Irungu Wakahora of TNA clinched an early lead, and was still ahead of the two as well as Agano party’s candidate Mburu Kamau by yesterday evening.
By the time of going to press, Wakahora had garnered 25,034 votes from 107 out of 129 polling stations in Laikipia East constituency.
Kiunjuri had bagged 12,540 votes, Muriithi, 2,541 while Kamau had 2,221.
In the newly created Laikipia North constituency, Kiunjuri garnered 7,428 votes, while Muriithi got 3,258. Wakahora garnered 9,322 votes with Kamau getting 2,870 votes.
Laikipia North constituency was carved out of Laikipia East and Laikipia West constituencies.
Kiunjuri made history in 2007 when he became the first Laikipia East MP to be elected for three consecutive terms.
He was firts elected to parliament in 1997 on a DP ticket.
He then founded the Grand National Union (GNU) party on which he was contesting the governor’s position.
Muriithi, who is a nephew to president Kibaki, is a one-time Laikipia West MP, who trounced former minister GG Kariuki in 2007 on a PNU ticket.
But the UDF party member chose to face-off with Kiunjuri (GNU), Wakahora and Mburu in the county’ gubernatorial race.
No comments:
Post a Comment