Uhuru Kenyatta to pick Nyandarua Jubilee gubernatorial flagbearer
The entry of former Water CS Sicily Kariuki (left) into the Nyandarua governor’s race has complicated political calculations for Governor Francis Kimemia (right).
President Uhuru Kenyatta will decide who gets the Jubilee party ticket in the Nyandarua governorship race as he tries to broker a deal between the party’s main aspirants for the position.
But even as the President leads the consensus route to address what has become the party’s biggest headache in the nominations ahead of the August 9, 2022 General Election, former Water Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki is upbeat that she will get the nomination certificate.
Ms Kariuki, is seeking to unseat Governor Francis Kimemia, who is seeking to defend the seat he won in the 2017 General Election on the Jubilee party ticket.
She says that though the party’s choice for the position has taken long and, to some extent, generated anxiety among her people on the ground, “the unity of the party remains the most important thing.”
Anxious moment
“It is an anxious moment for my people. They have recently suggested staging peaceful protests in Nyandarua to demand that the party expedite the matter,” says Ms Kariuki.
“But I have advised my supporters against taking that route because to whom will they be demonstrating against?” she says.
Already United Democratic Alliance of Deputy President William Ruto has nominated Dr Moses Kiarie to face off with whoever Jubilee fronts with The Service Party of former Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri nominating Mr Waithaka Mwangi, the former area deputy governor.
Ms Kariuki also noted that the president’s party made a wise move by going consensus as the best method to choose its governorship candidate as opposed to the universal suffrage by party membership, which she said, is prone to rigging.
“Party primaries are expensive and divisive. It is late to think universal suffrage by party membership would have been a better method of nomination.”
“If anything, the consensus route being explored is stepwise. It’s good that the party doesn’t get a weak candidate as rival parties would have easily infiltrated our nomination exercise,” she says.
On Monday last week, Ms Kariuki’s bid got a shot in the arm after over 150 Kiama Kiama council of elders endorsed her candidature. The event happened at Murungaru in Kinangop.
It was to be followed by another endorsement by the county’s churches- at an interdenominational prayer meeting on Saturday April 16, 2022.
“Of course you know what it means when the elders and the Churches speak,” she noted.
Ms Kariuki also denied claims that she stormed the Jubilee party’s headquarters on Friday last week to block the party from awarding Governor Kimemia the nomination certificate.
At the time Jubilee Secretary-General Jeremiah Kioni, the Ndaragwa MP, was issuing nomination certificates to the parties’ aspirants, who had been nominated by consensus method.
“There is a way I handle myself. I did not storm the party offices as claimed,” she says.
“I went there after learning of what was happening and that my competitor was also there. I didn’t know the party had an event on that day because no one had called me. I just wanted to have a meeting with the party secretary-general,” says Ms Kariuki.
She says that when Mr Kioni assured her that her opponent will not be issued with the certificate as the president was leading the consensus, “I left in peace, a happy person.”
But even as the President’s party takes long to nominate the candidate, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission guidelines for the election in August provide that parties have until May 9, 2022 to submit lists of their nominated candidates to the commission.
This is so as to enable the commission to start the process of printing the ballot papers for the candidates in the August 9 General Election.
Ms Kariuki is among the first individuals to resign from their government jobs to plunge into politics.
She, nevertheless, says that despite the issuance of the certificate taking long, the ground is warm for her as she ruled out the prospect of vying as an independent candidate.
She said she is confident of bagging the Jubilee party ticket.
“You sit for an exam if you have prepared well, to win! I am not in this race to lose,” she says, noting that she is lucky to have the resources of young people, mostly actors, who have supported “me in my campaigns.”
