Kisumu,15/10/07
 
MOI AND KANU LOOSES TO ODM IN SOUTH RIFT WIDEN AS ALL ASPIRANTS TROOPED FOR ODM TICKETS TO PARLIAMENT

By Leo Odera Omolo
 
The Kenya Africa National Union (KANU) the party of independence, which ruled Kenya for close to 40 years, is on the verge of total collapse.
 
The waves and euphoria of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) which is currently sweeping across the country has dislodged KANU out of its traditional stronghold .In many places, particularly in the South Rift, KANU is likely not to find credible aspirants to vie for Parliamentary seats.
 
In Kipsigis region an area is the Southern part of the Rift Valley Province which for many years has remained KANU home turf, things have changed so dramatically in favour of the ODM to an extent that the former ruling party might not find any suitable parliamentary aspirants to defend seats in most of its usually safe parliamentary seats.
 
All of the most credible aspirants vying for Parliamentary seats in the area numbering nine constituencies in total have trooped for the ODM tickets .The final blow to KANU was the last weekend defection of the MP for Chepalungu Hon John Kipsang Arap Koech who is also Kenya’s Minister for East African Affairs.
 
Local political pundits were quick in pointing out that the crossing of Minister Koech from KANU over to the ODM is likely to add no more value to the populist ODM party whose presidential nominee is Hon Raila Amolo Odinga. But it has however dealt a big blow to President Mwai Kibaki’s PNU which is seemingly remained a moribund party despite of the fact that the general election in Kenya is only 60 days away from now.
 
The nine constituencies in Kipsigis land which for years have remained safe under the KANU domain are Chepalungu,Bomet,Sotik,Buret,Konoin,Belgut,Ainmoi and Kipkellion .The ninth seat is that of the Kuresoi in the Olenguruone area of the newly created Molo district.
 
In the current 9th parliament, these constituencies were represented as follows: Hon John Koech (Chepalungu), Hon Nick Salat (Bomet), Hon Anthony K.Kimetto (Sotik) Hon Paul K Sang (Buret) Hon Sammy Koech (Konoin) Hon Charles Keter (Belgut) Hon Noah Nondin Arap Too (Ainmoi) and Hon Dr Sammy Ruto (Kipkelion) while Hon Henry Cheboi represented Kuresoi an area with the largest Kalenjin settlement area formerly in Nakuru district.
 
The local political pundits in the most populous Kipsigis community however, consider the last weekend defection of Minister Koech from PNU to ODM as a blessing in disguise. Kipsigis community, which is a sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups consider the defection of the Minister as very insignificant and inconsequential. After all, the Minister was heading home anyway and he would still loose his Chepalungu seat to the former Minster for Science and Technology Mr. Isaac Ruto whom he had beaten hand down during the year 2002 and won the seat on a KANU ticket.
 
Ruto however, later teamed up with the other ODM luminaries and comfortably beat the government supported Banana (Yes) group during the referendum vote for the rejected Amos Wako Draft constitution, which the Kibaki administration had wanted to push through as opposed to the popular Bomas of Kenya Constitutional proposal and law reform.
 
The youthful former Minister Ruto had served in the defeated KANU regime of the retired President Daniel Arap Moi but has ever since remained steadfastly in ODM.
 
Mr.Koech is also being faulted for having quickly jumped onto President Kibaki’s bandwagon and joined the so-called government of National Unity without consulting KANU a party, which had sponsored his election to Parliament in 2002.
 
During Minister’s tenure in President Kibaki’s cabinet close to 20,000 members of the Kipsigis community and other Kalenjin people who had acquired the prime land plots and were even issued with land title deeds by the previous Moi regime, which had lawfully settled them in the Mau forest area in both Nakuru and Narok districts were forcefully and violently evicted from their farms and rendered homeless and landless by the Kibaki regime.
 
Koech who joined the Narc government against the KANU wishes is also being discredited for having remained in the government while it sacked en masse nearly all the Kalenjins who were serving in senior positions in the republic services and replaced them with Kibaki’s own tribesmen, the Kikuyus ,and their surrogate communities in the Mt Kenya region. The government also removed the Kalenjins who were holding senior position in the Provincial Administration, military and police after purging those who were in senior position in the parastatals organization and other quasi government organizations.
 
The majority of the ODM stalwarts believes that their presidential nominee Raila Amolo Odinga might not be comfortable in working with Minister Koech who in the past, especially during the referendum vote campaign of 2005 had hurled scathing criticism and abuses at “Agwambo” denouncing him in all his utterances.
 
Raila has recently acquired the popular Kalenjin nickname of Arap Mibei. There is a song and praise of Arap Mibei in almost every village in Kipsigisland as “Agwambo” waves sweeps the region like tornado
 
In all the nine parliamentary electoral constituencies in the Kipsigis region the seven outgoing incumbent MPs have taken the ODM nomination papers from the party headquarters and paid up their nomination fees of kshs 100,000.
 
They are Dr.Sammy Ruto (Kipkellion) Noah Arap Too (Ainamoi) Charles K.Keter (Belgut) sammy Koech (Konoin) John Kech (Chepalungu) and Henry Cheboi (Kuresoi). Tow Mps however remained in KANU They are Nick Salat (Bomet) and Anthony Kimetto (Sotik) and are supporting Preident Kibaki re-election under PNU-KANU alliance.
 
But all of those supporting Kibaki re-election would lose their seats. Nick Salat had lost considerable support in Bomet to his arch-rival Kipkalia Kones, who is an architect and pointman of the ODM in the region, while Kimetto is heading home .The semi-illiterate MP is expected to be consigned to the political limbo by the first Kipsigis female to be elected MP Miss Lorna Labosa,a daughter of a wealthy large scale tea farmer in Sotik highland, the late Mr.Fredrick Laboso.Lorna almost beat Kimetto in 2002 but lost due to Moi factor.
 
Currently each of the eight constituencies has an average of between 15 and 20 new aspirants, but almost all of them applied for nominations on the ODM tickets. Maybe KANU could succeed later in harvesting those who will loose ODM nominations during the party preliminaries. But this time around the fallout is not expected due to the fact that all the preliminaries for all political parties will be held simultaneously on one day giving no room for further political maneuvers.
 
KANU also suffered a heavy blow when the party stalwart and a veteran Kipsigis early nationalist Dr.Taitta Arap Towett, died in a road accident a week ago. The accident near Nakuru town where the former long serving and perhaps the most efficient Education Minster in Kenya has ever had had a home. He was traveling from Nairobi to Nakuru in the evening round at about 7.30pm when he chauffeur a driven car collided with a lorry ferrying vegetables to Nairobi.
 
Dr.Towett who represented the larger Southern electoral area covering what is now Kericho,Bureti,Bomet,Transmara and Narok districts in the colonial Legislative Council since June 1958 together with the former Cabinet Minister J.J Nyagah and the retired President Daniel Arap Moi were the last three surviving old nationalists who took part in the Lancaster House Round Table  Constitutional Conferences of both 1960 and 1962 which paved the way for final political independence in June 1963.
 
He died while he was serving as KANU sub-branch chairman in Sotik constituency in Bureti district.
 
Former President Daniel Arap Moi is supporting President Mwai Kibaki re-election while dismissing the opposition parties as tribalistic outfit. But Moi has lost his former political clout and hold on the seemingly rebellious Kalenjin communities ever since his pet project Uhuru Kenyatta lost his bid for Presidency in 2002.Moi entry into the campaign for Kibaki’s re-election says, local analysts has even worsen the situation for Kibaki in the Southern Rift and Nandi areas.
 
Nearly all his former top brass government officials who served in his last regime have trooped in ODM seeking the party nomination to parliament.
 
They include the former head of public service and secretary to the cabinet Dr.Sally Kosgei who is now seeking ODM nominations in Aldai constituency in North Nandi ,Mr Zackayo K Cheruiot the former powerful internal security and provincial administration PS now seeking ODM nomination in Kuresoi and the former deputy chief of the general staff Lt.Gen Koech now vying for the Ainamoi seat in Kericho district. Strangely enough even Hon Biwott’s own wife Prof Margaret Kamar is contesting the Eldoret East seat on The ODM while her husband the former power man Nicholas Biwott is firm in KANU on whose ticket he will defend his Keiyo south seat.
 
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.om