• Already a major split has been witnessed among top community leaders, with some backing Raila and others Ruto.
• Those supporting the handshake between Raila and President Uhuru Kenyatta are behind the former Prime Minister to succeed Uhuru.
Image: JOHN CHESOLI
ODM leader Raila Odinga has tasked key lieutenants with wrestling the support of Kuria community in Migori back to his fold ahead of the 2022 general election.
The lieutenants have been tasked with keeping Deputy President William Ruto at bay. The DP has been making strategic forays into the crucial swing-vote of the minority community.
The Kuria community accounts for 25 per cent of Migori county's 380,000 votes, according to the 2017 IEBC register. The region voted for Jubilee in the 2013 and 2017 general elections.
And now, Raila wants to bag the votes.
Already a major split has been witnessed among top community leaders, with some backing Raila and others Ruto.
While Migori Governor Okoth Obado and former Rongo MP Dalmas Otieno have ditched ODM and declared support for Ruto's presidential bid, Raila is seeking to ensure they don't migrate with his votes.
The ODM party enjoys massive support in Rongo, Awendo, Uriri, Suna East, Suna West and Nyatike constituencies. Both Kuria East and Kuria West constituencies were won by Jubilee candidates. The two MPs, Marwa Kitayama and Mathias Robi, are in Ruto's fold.
Weeks ago, Social Protection Principal Secretary Nelson Marwa took handshake campaigns to Kuria with a meeting in Kehancha town.
Those supporting the handshake between Raila and President Uhuru Kenyatta are behind the former Prime Minister to succeed Uhuru.
The Kehancha meeting brought together groups and representatives from elected leaders, professionals, businesspeople, youths, women and activists from the community. It was co-hosted by ODM nominated MP Dennitah Ghati and Professor Chacha Nyaigoti.
Robi and Kitayama did not attend.
“The Kuria community must remain in government. We are here to say thanks and show our support to President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga for the handshake. As a community, we are solidly behind the two leaders,” Marwa said in a statement read on behalf of the group.
He criticised Ruto’s hustler narrative, saying the “Kuria community will not be cheated by peremende (sweets). "We want sustainable development for our people,” he said.
Cases of cattle rustling between the Kuria and Luo communities in Migori county and between Kuria, Maasai and Kipsigis in Narok county have often been fuelled by politicians around electioneering period to shift voting patterns.
Marwa said the group has resolved to ensure Luos and Kurias in Migori live in unity that is anchored in the handshake.
"We will engage with the Luo community with mutual respect as neighbours and we will avoid cases of cattle rustling and tribal clashes reported during the election period to sway voters’ psychology in the ballot," Marwa said.
Ghati said the Kuria community will shun leaders who have been using derogatory and violent language against other tribes.
Migori Jubilee party chairman Nelson Babere said they were still behind Uhuru despite Ruto and the two Kuria MPs breaking away into Tangatanga.
“We are still allied to President Kenyatta and as a community, we seek our direction from Nelson Marwa. Our two MPs have openly campaigned against the handshake and have been attacking both the President and Raila. We will seek to offer remedy in the ballot,” Babere said.
He added, “Migori is a cosmopolitan county and that is why we support the handshake to bring unity so that we move forward together."
On March 3 during a funeral in Masaba area that was attended by two MPs, Nelson Marwa warned the lawmakers that their constant attacks on Uhuru, Raila and the BBI will result in heightened political heat against them.
“I want to tell the two that the government will not be silent, especially in my presence when they attack the President in public. We will turn the political heat in Kuria region and they will be forced to flee to Tanzania for refuge,” Marwa said.
The former administrator said the two leaders have been inciting the Kuria community against the President and sowing seeds of discord.
“I want to advise the two to shut up and we won’t notice them. But if they continue with the same trend, then the government will be forced to turn up a high-tech campaign against them,” Marwa said.
In the 2017 presidential election, whose results were nullified by the Supreme Court, Uhuru garnered 41,951 votes against Raila's 21,202 across the two Kuria constituencies.
Kitayama has accused Raila of neglecting the community.
The MP said they will support Ruto in 2022. He said the support for both Uhuru and Raila had dwindled.
Kitayama said proposals to have the community’s interests factored in the BBI report were deliberately scrapped.
“We have nothing personal against Mr Odinga, we respect him as a statesman, but he has always ignored our plight as a community despite the marginalisation we are facing,” the lawmaker said.
“There is no doubt that he [Raila] has his loyalists and supporters in Kuria but I’m certain that he cannot clinch 20 per cent of the community’s votes. This has been evident in the past elections, where the community has always voted against the opposition.”
Edited by P.O