By Charles Kinyua and William Muchiri
Worth Noting:
- According to sources, governor Johnson Sakaja is pitted against Embakasi North MP James Mwangi Gakuya whose mobilisation prowess is on a high level and is also highly streetwise operative.
- Gakuya is also a close buddy of the party’s Deputy party leader Rigathi Gachagua who is also the country’s deputy president and who has been delegated to foresee the smooth flow of the elections by his boss.
- Sources intimate to Mt Kenya Times disclosed that the governor is relying heavily on his county legislators; where UDA has 55 MCAs out the entire assembly that has around 123 members.
United Democratic Alliance (UDA) threw caution to the wind and commenced the first phase of party elections amid hitches.
The elections staggered in four phases after they were adjourned in December started in five counties; namely Nairobi, Narok, Homabay, West Pokot and Busia.
In West Pokot, the election started late afternoon after election materials arrived late, as party members waited patiently.
The county that is one of the party’s strongholds has a registered membership of 308,000.
In cosmopolitan Nairobi City County, the party has a registered membership of over 850,000 and has attracted high profile candidates.
According to sources, governor Johnson Sakaja is pitted against Embakasi North MP James Mwangi Gakuya whose mobilisation prowess is on a high level and is also highly streetwise operative.
Gakuya is also a close buddy of the party’s Deputy party leader Rigathi Gachagua who is also the country’s deputy president and who has been delegated to foresee the smooth flow of the elections by his boss.
Sources intimate to Mt Kenya Times disclosed that the governor is relying heavily on his county legislators; where UDA has 55 MCAs out the entire assembly that has around 123 members.
Sakaja and several other members of the party had setbacks after their names were inadvertently omitted in the register due to technical errors and some were later allowed to vote after their issues were resolved.
The governor who was registered at St. George’s Primary School had been barred from voting as he had registered using his Passport and as such, his ID could not help identify him at the register at first.
In parts of Embakasi Central constituency represented in the National Assembly by MejjaDonk Benjamin Gathiru, elections were disrupted by violence due to intense rivalry as the party has a fanatical following.
In several polling stations in Kayole area, security had to be beefed up as rival camps engaged in shouting contests, thereby threatening a degeneration of of full blown chaos.
In the city the ruling party has four members of parliament; namely, Gakuya, MejjaDonk, John Kiarie of Dagoretti South and Kamande Muafrika of Roysambu .
The second and third phases of the party’s elections will kick off in June while the final phase will be carried out in August, culminating in national elections at the end of the year.
On Friday evening UDA secretariat convened a media briefing that was addressed by among others the party chairperson Cecily Mbarire, Secretary General Cleopas Marara and Elections Board chairman Anthony Mwaura where they expressed satisfaction at how the process went.
They said that despite the minor hiccups witnessed the process was fairly satisfying with no incident reported on system failure in any of the five counties where the polls were held.
“Being the first time we are employing electronic voting, and without any case of system failure reported, we are impressed as the board. Of course, we had a few challenges, majority of which were resolved through our call centre interventions, but to a large extent, these were very successful elections,” their statement said.
The Board will have a post-mortem of the process and see areas where they can improve in the Phase Two elections to be held in June.
The statement stated, “We are proud of this milestone, and the next phase of the polls will even be better'”.