By Anderson Ojwang’
It’s all gloves off. It’s murkier and deadly. Punches flying all over in the air. This time, there is no President William Ruto to intervene as the referee, but the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) presiding over the duel.
Mbeere North is burning. Deputy President Prof. Kindiki Kithure has discarded his gentleman nature to also play rough, hard and tactical on his predecessor, Rigathi Gachagua, the self-declared leader of the mountain.
Kindiki taunted Gachagua as a small man and said he didn’t see him when he fought for former President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto at the ICC court in The Hague.
“When Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto had problem in Haque, I was their lawyer… I did not see him there. We fought against the white man called Ocampo (Ocampo was the ICC prosecutor during the ICC trials) and defeated him. We brought back home Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto.
So who is this other one speaking? He is a small man. It’s only that he has inflated his muscles and troubleshooting,” he said.
Kindiki dismissed Gachagua’s claims that he was the kingpin of the mountain, saying that he was the senior-most political leader of the region.
“Hi tabia ya kujitangazo wewe mwenyewe eti mimi ndio mkubwa ya hi mlima. Nani alikuchagua mkubwa wa mlima? (This tendency of self-declaration that you are the king of the mountain. Who elected you to be the leader of the mountain?) I am the senior-most political leader in Mt. Kenya region for the avoidance of doubt.”
Gachagua also did not take the challenge lying down and upped the game when he invited President Ruto to the ring.
“Wewe Kasongo kuja. Mimi niko area na watu wa Mbeere. Tuoneze we kivumbi sasa. Hapana tuma mfanyakazi. Wewe Kasongo kuja mwenyewe. Hii Kasongo watu Mbeere wamekula pesa yake, amenyolewa (You Kasongo come, I am here with the people of Mbeere, let us show you dust. Don’t send a government employee. You Kasongo come yourself. This Kasongo, the Mbeere people have eaten his money, do we shave him?)” Gachagua said.
Kindiki exuded confidence that UDA candidate Leonard Wamuthende will win the Mbeere North by-election scheduled for this month, November 27th.
Gachagua is rooting for DP candidate Newton Kariuki. Both are immediate former Members of County Assembly of Embu after they resigned to vie for the seat.
“Hata sijui ametoka wapi. Alikuja tu juzi. Mimi nimekua kwa siasa for over 20 years, tangu wakati wa Kibaki (I don’t know where he is from. He just came the other day, while I have been in politics for the last 20 years, from the time of President Kibaki),” he said.
CS Geoffrey Ruku said Kindiki will not be a one-term deputy president but will successfully serve his second term and eventually be the sixth president of Kenya.
“2027 tunachagua President William Ruto and Kithure Kindiki. Na tukimaliza 2032 sisi kama mlima tutaungana na Kenya yote kuhakikisha kwamba Kindiki amekua rais wa Kenya. Tunaona mbali kama giraffe. (In 2027 we will re-elect President William Ruto and Kithure Kindiki, and after that in 2032, we as the mountain will unite with all Kenyans to ensure that Kindiki becomes the president of Kenya. We can see far, like a giraffe),” he said.
For five years, the two senior leaders from Mt. Kenya have been sparring, and finally, Mbeere North has provided the ring for the leaders to sort out their age-long differences.
In what was billed as the first contest between the two leaders, it ended prematurely when the referee William Ruto called off the match and instead annulled the initial results.
Ruto, then Deputy President and UDA presidential candidate for the 2022 presidential election, had invited then Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua and then Tharaka Nithi Senator Prof. Kithure Kindiki to a duel for his deputy.
In this contest, a stalemate that lasted over 17 hours was characterised by failed consensus-building, with the opinion polls that favoured Kindiki.
Ruto and his team resorted to opinion polls conducted internally to unlock the stalemate. The first poll, conducted internally by a strategy and research team headed by Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir, involved 10,000 respondents drawn from 10 Mt. Kenya counties. In that poll, Kindiki trounced Gachagua, with Governor Anne Waiguru coming in third.
In the second survey, conducted nationwide in the 47 counties, involving 25,000 respondents, Kindiki yet again emerged top, with Waiguru and Gachagua second and third respectively.
The final vote involved the Central Kenya UDA MPs, who were called in for a vote. Senator Kindiki once again trounced Gachagua.
Out of the 31 Mt. Kenya UDA MPs present, 22 voted in favour of Kindiki, 5 voted for Gachagua, two backed Waiguru, while Muturi obtained one vote, with one rejected vote.
The referee had no alternative but to annul the results and instead awarded the mantle to Gachagua, who was later impeached by the Parliament and Senate.
And now the Mbeere North by-election is the battleground. On one corner of the ring is Gachagua, the second deputy president, representing the United Opposition and the self-declared leader of Mt. Kenya.
For Kindiki and Gachagua, Mbeere North is the test ground, and the battle will end up in premium tears with casualties.
The clock is ticking and hearts pounding. Who will have the last laugh?
