Azimio La Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga’s ODM has maintained its dominance in Busia after the party won five of the county’s seven constituency seats.
Of the five MPs who were elected on the party’s ticket in 2017, four were re-elected.
They include Raphael Wanjala (Budalang’i) who won the race with 15,722 votes, Funyula’s Wilberforce Mudenyo who clinched victory with 26,551 votes, Joseph Oyula (Butula constituency) who was declared winner with 28,961 votes and Geoffrey Odanga (Matayos) who won with 19,136 of the tallied votes.
The only other MP candidate who got elected on the former prime minister’s party ticket was Teso North’s Oku Kaunya. He clinched victory after bagging 23,403 votes from the 59,785 registered voters in the constituency.
Geoffrey Omuse (Teso South constituency) who had also been elected on the ODM party ticket in 2017 left the Orange party this year ahead of the party primaries and defended his seat as an independent candidate. He lost to UDA’s Mary Emase.
ODM also won the woman representative seat after Catherine Omanyo trounced her competitors and emerged winner with 129,710 votes.
Omanyo now takes the mantle from outgoing woman representative Florence Mutua.
Mutua envisioned to succeed Governor Sospeter Ojaamong on the ODM party ticket but was defeated by Otuoma during the ODM nominations.
In the other two constituencies, Emase won the Teso South MP seat with 18,051 votes while Geoffrey Mulanya (independent) clinched the Nambale MP seat with 19,018 of the cast votes.
The Orange party lost the senate seat that went to activist Okiya Omtatah (National Reconstruction Alliance). Okiya defeated his competitors to be declared winner with 171,681 votes.
Busia has traditionally supported Raila having overwhelmingly voted for him in 2007, 2013 and 2017 when he contested for the presidency.
In this year's polls, Raila managed to receive 81.84 per cent of the 266, 711 votes tallied compared with Ruto’s 17.48 per cent.
The county has 416,765 registered voters going by the latest IEBC voter statistics.
In his last two visits to the county ahead of the August 9 polls, the former premier called on Busia residents to vote for ODM candidates to be able to receive adequate support from him in case he succeeded in his bid to take over the presidency from President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Busia is among counties which have produced personalities who have served in the party’s high ranks.
Among them is former Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba who served as the ODM secretary general before he fell-out with the political outfit ahead of the 2017 general election as well as Mutua who is currently the party’s deputy organising secretary.
Busia governor-elect Paul Otuoma also once served as the ODM’s vice chairperson.
