The entry of city politician and former Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu in the Kabete by election has thrown other fringe candidates in early political limbo as the race becomes a serious horses only affair.
Waititu, a Nairobi streets politician with a rags-to-riches folklore who started out as a councillor in the defunct Nairobi Municipal Council, then rose to a Deputy Mayor and to member of parliament before his ambition to be the inaugural city governor received a thrashing by CORD’s Dr. Evans Kidero in 2013 will be seeking the Kabete seat despite the sombre aura of the by election after the assassination of MP George Muchai.
Waititu will be a second time beneficiary of deadly fate, having captured the Embakasi seat in 2008 after the killing of then ODM MP Melitus Mugabe Were.
Sources indicate that at least six non-starter aspirants have pulled out of the race under the heavy weight of the presidency torn between Ferdinand Waititu and Lewis Nguyai.
While Waititu is GEMA honcho to the core, Nguyai is a close confidant of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The Jubilee Alliance Party (JAP) yesterday said it will conduct joint nominations for the Kabete Parliamentary seat even as news spread that it has identified the former Embakasi MP.
It will be interesting to see which parties will come out to compete against a JAP candidate in Kiambu County – the home county of President Uhuru Kenyatta – considering how the by election of Gatundu South was conducted where Moses Kuria was hand-picked, propelled to the top and other candidates told to toe the line and ‘respect the President’.
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