President William Ruto and his former Deputy Rigathi Gachagua
DCP’s landslide Ol Kalou win crowns Gachagua the mountain’s new kingpin and rattles UDA’s grip on the region
By David Kimani
Rigathi Gachagua’s Democracy for the Citizens Party has crushed President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance in the Ol Kalou parliamentary by-election, with DCP’s Sammy Kamau Ngotho garnering 35,228 votes against UDA’s Muchina Nyagah’s 5,402 in final results from all 144 polling stations.
Moments after the win was confirmed, DCP party leader Rigathi Gachagua issued a lengthy statement claiming the victory as a defining moment for his party and for Mt Kenya politics.
“Congratulations, Hon. Sammy Douglas Kamau Waweru, on your historic election as the Member of Parliament for OlKalou Constituency. You have won by a resounding margin, reflecting the unmistakable voice of the people. We thank the Almighty God for this great victory,” Gachagua said.
“To the great people of OlKalou, thank you for giving our party, DCP, its first Member of the National Assembly. Thank you, my great people, for refusing to sell your birthright and for being wise enough not to fall for the deception of development projects. Thank you a million times for guarding your vote and for standing firm despite the actions of rogue police officers armed with guns and tear gas.”
He went on to describe the win in characteristically martial terms. “Once again, I am grateful to the people of Olkalou for accepting to add me an extra soldier to join the great army that I lead in Defence of Kenyans. I have been struggling with 18 soldiers but with great results; now I have 19, things will be much better.”
Gachagua singled out his campaign lieutenants for praise. “I salute our campaign leaders, Hon. John Methu Gitungati and Hon. Wanjiku Muhia Ngatha, for their outstanding leadership and guidance throughout the three-month campaign. I was deeply impressed by the way you organized and led us. To our allied Senators, Members of the National Assembly, MCAs, campaign teams, aspirants, volunteers, our staff, thank you for your unwavering commitment and sacrifice.”
He said he would travel to the constituency in person to thank voters. “Tomorrow morning, I will visit all the five wards to personally thank the people of OlKalou. I have been so directed by the community. Hon. Kamau, please go and serve your people diligently, and represent them well. God bless OlKalou, and God bless Kenya!”
The scale of the defeat for UDA was staggering. Nyagah, the late David Kiaraho’s former aide and UDA’s handpicked candidate, could not even muster a sixth of Kamau’s tally, finishing a distant second in a field that also included Jubilee’s Eng. Wilson Kigwa (164 votes), the National Liberal Party’s Stephen Wanyoike (85) and the People’s Movement’s Timothy Kariuki (45). For a seat the government had poured enormous resources into, and one it needed to hold to prove its writ still runs in Mt Kenya, the arithmetic was unforgiving.
This was never simply a contest for one parliamentary seat in Nyandarua County. It was billed, correctly, as a referendum on who now commands the political heart of Mt Kenya, President Ruto or his estranged former deputy. On that question, Ol Kalou has delivered an emphatic answer. The mountain is slippery for Ruto, and it is Gachagua who is standing steadiest on it.
The result vindicates a strategy that many in his own camp questioned. Gachagua defied pressure from the Jubilee Party to step aside and let a united opposition candidate face UDA, insisting instead that DCP field its own man to test its popularity in the region. It was a gamble that could have exposed him. Instead, DCP’s superior organisation on the ground, from a slicker vote-tallying operation to disciplined ward-level mobilisation, outclassed UDA’s state-backed machine at every turn.
As the results trickled in, congratulations poured in from across the political divide, an unusual show of consensus that underscored how decisively the outcome had been read. Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, who had spent months mocking Gachagua’s “kingpin” ambitions and vowing to “deal with him squarely” in Ol Kalou, was gracious in defeat. “Congratulations Sammy Douglas Waweru Kamau on your imminent victory in the by-election held today for the MP seat for Ol Kalou constituency. Unite the residents and serve them all without distinction,” Kindiki wrote, adding a nod to the UDA candidate: “You may not have succeeded today, but your star shines bright into the future.”
Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka struck a sharper tone in his message, framing the result as a rebuke of the government rather than simply a party triumph. “Your victory is decisive. It is the clear voice of the people that refused to be silenced by violence, intimidation, thuggery or the machinery of Mr Ruto’s rogue regime,” Musyoka said in a statement, adding: “Wananchi have spoken.” His congratulations, issued under the Wiper Patriotic Front’s banner and the hashtag Komboa Kenya, underscored the deepening alignment between Gachagua and fellow opposition principals ahead of 2027.
From Siaya, Governor James Orengo led further tributes from Gachagua’s Linda Mwananchi allies, framing the win as a signal of shifting national political fortunes ahead of 2027.
Within DCP itself, the celebration carried the weight of vindication. Nyandarua Senator John Methu, appointed the party’s secretary general designate in May with explicit instructions to deliver Ol Kalou, had staked his political credibility on the outcome. Working alongside Kipipiri MP Wanjiku Muhia, whom Gachagua tasked to co-lead the ground campaign, Methu spent weeks countering what DCP described as an aggressive government charm offensive involving cash inducements to voters. “The people of Ol Kalou have proved resilient, and many of them are telling us that the government has pressed them hard with money, but they have sworn not to be swayed,” Methu said in the weeks before the vote. Ol Kalou’s result suggests he was right, and his standing within DCP, already elevated by his defection from UDA ranks, now looks unassailable.
The victory also burnished the credentials of a wider bench of DCP-affiliated leaders who campaigned hard for Kamau: Kiambu Senator Karungo Thang’wa, Murang’a Senator Joe Nyutu, Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango, Kirinyaga Women Representative Njeri Maina, Naivasha MP Jayne Kihara, Gatanga MP Edward Muriu, Mukurweini MP John Kaguchia, Tetu MP Wanjohi Wandeto and Nyeri senatorial aspirant Kabando wa Kabando. For each of them, Ol Kalou is fresh proof that alignment with Gachagua is no longer a political liability in Mt Kenya, but an asset.
The same cannot be said for UDA’s standard-bearers in the region. Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri, Kimani Ichung’wah, Anne Wamuratha, Betty Maina, Eric Wamumbi, the Kiambaa MP and Nyeri Senator Wahome Wamatinga all campaigned for Nyagah, betting their own political capital on a UDA win. Instead they inherit a defeat so lopsided it borders on humiliating, one that will invite uncomfortable questions from a State House already anxious about its standing in a region it cannot afford to lose ahead of 2027.
Jubilee, the party that once owned this seat through the late Kiaraho, has been the quiet casualty of the night, reduced to a rump of 164 votes and further evidence that its grip on Mt Kenya has all but evaporated, squeezed between a resurgent DCP and an incumbent UDA.
Gachagua has long insisted, sometimes disingenuously, that he has no interest in being crowned Mt Kenya’s kingpin. Ol Kalou has made the disclaimer moot. With DCP’s first parliamentary seat secured and its dominance in the mountain freshly demonstrated at the ballot box, Gachagua is, in practice if not in title, the region’s new kingpin, and the road to 2027 now runs unmistakably through him.
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