Jubilee Party’s (handshake) Kevin Ochieng secured a triumphant victory to ensure the ruling party stumps its authority in Kiambu politics.
Ochieng garnered 823 votes against his closest challenger Bernard Kariuki of PEP with 641 votes, to give him and his party the bragging rights in the hotly contested by-election that saw two governors campaign for different candidates.
Ochieng rose to the limelight when he declared his interest to run for the Kahawa Wendani seat after his elder brother, Cyrus Omondi, who held the seat died in India.
For the better part of Tuesday, security was beefed up around various parts of Kahawa Wendani as residents cast ballots.
Officers from the GSU and the regular police were on standby manning the various shopping centres.
The two polling stations in the ward were opened at 6am to a smooth start of voting throughout the day, although low voter turnout was reported with only 2006 total votes.
The polling stations were closed by 6pm.
Some of the reasons cited included the fact that the majority of Wendani residents are students who had to attend classes while others are low-income earners, who had to go to work. The vote fell on a weekday.
Many leave their places of work for home at 5pm, which is when most polling centres were closing their gates.
Jubilee Party fielded Kevin Ochieng, the brother of the late Omondi who was touted as the front runner based on the spirited campaign he staged in the chase for the votes. A total of 15 candidates were battling for the 16,000 votes. They include Hellen Kiragu (Independent, Rose Karimi (PNU), Brian Simiyu (PDU), Derrick Mbugua (Wiper), Erick Ouma (TND).
As night fell, residents stood in groups waiting for the decision on who would represent them at the Kiambu County Assembly.
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