Deputy President William Ruto has developed elaborate campaign strategy in Kibra as he seeks to wrest the seat from ODM leader Raila Odinga's strategic backyard.
The battle for the parliamentary seat has already snowballed into a showdown between the two protagonists in what is billed as a 2022 dress rehearsal.
With his eyes set on the 2022 presidential duel, Ruto is keen to turn the tables against Raila in Kibra to send a message to his main rivals.
Raila is not invincible — that's the message.
And Ruto is willing and ready to spend to hammer that message home, allies say.
As part of his strategy to promote Jubilee in Kibra, Ruto has embarked on his signature campaign plan — hosting interest groups in droves at both his Karen home and in city hotels.
The meetings give opinion leaders from the expansive Kibra constituency an opportunity to articulate grassroots problems and map out a winning formula.
On Thursday, Lang'ata MP Nixon Korir, a Ruto close ally, told the Star that Jubilee is ready to go all out to deliver the Kibra seat "with a resounding victory".
“We are in this race to win and win big. The Jubilee Party through the leadership of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, will capture the seat,” Korir said.
“The Jubilee Party will sell its agenda directly to the people of Kibra. Whether we meet them (voters) outside the constituency or inside their sitting rooms, it doesn't matter. What we want is a conversation with them,” the MP added.
Korir is Jubilee's chief campaigner in the by-election on November 7.
Former Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale is leading the political messaging and strategy docket, while National Assembly Majority Whip Benjamin Washiali is the coordinator of lawmakers in the campaign team.
The divided Jubilee Party has fielded ex-football star McDonald Mariga for the in what is seen as part of Ruto's strategy to get the Luhya vote.
Raila has fronted Bernard 'Imran' Okoth to succeed his late brother, MP Ken Okoth, who died in July during his second term.
Other main candidates are Eliud Owalo (ANC) and Ford Kenya's Khamisi Butichi.
The Ruto-Raila rivalry has overshadowed the parliamentary campaigns with politicians and analysts warning that the poll outcome will have huge political ramifications for the ex-PM and his nemesis Ruto.
HOSTING DELEGATIONS
In his classic delegations approach, the DP on Monday evening held a strategy meeting with MPs and politicians from the Luyha community at his Karen residence.
The Star has established that the delegates agreed to include church leaders and other influential people from Kibra, including former MCA aspirants and business leaders.
Delegate leaders were each tasked to organise small clustered meetings within their groups to develop a cascading reaches down to households.
DP Ruto will preside at each meeting at different locations in the outskirts of Kibra.
The clustered campaign teams have budgets disbursed during weekly meetings, with the constituency campaign team spearheading Mariga's campaigns.
The meetings also bring together other Jubilee MPs in Nairobi supporting Mariga.
On Tuesday evening, Ruto met church leaders at a campaign meeting at Mash Park Hotel along Ngon'g Road. The clerics were drawn from the indigenous Dini Ya Msabwa, which is dominant among the Luhya.
On Monday night, the Deputy President met a group drawn from the Kisii community in Kibra. It was also attended by Kisii MPs allied to the Tangatanga movement and Jubilee legislators from Nairobi.
“We shall continue to hold more meetings in the coming days as campaigns gather steam. Many meetings are held daily and the one you are talking about could be one of them,” Embakasi North MP James Gakuya told the Star.
The MP is among Nairobi Jubilee MPs leading the campaigns after they reportedly succeeded in convincing President Uhuru to endorse Mariga.
“There was no way we would have failed to have a candidate in Nairobi again after the mistake we made in Embakasi South," the MP said.
According to Jubilee's tentative campaign programme seen by the Star, the DP is scheduled to address two campaign rallies in Kibra, one being the last rally on November 3 at a venue yet to be named.
In the meantime, the DP is relying heavily on his campaign team to do the groundwork before he enters the fray in the final lap of the campaign..
HOSTILITY FROM RAILA SUPPORTERS
It is said the DP could be avoiding going personally deep into the Kibra slums for campaigns because of possible hostility from Raila's supporters.
In fact, on Monday, Raila's allies set the tempo when they accused Ruto of looking for "chaos, violence and War” in Kibra by provoking the constituents through his constant ridicule and insults.
“When they are pushed to the wall and insulted as Ruto is doing, they will respond and Ruto may just get the trouble he is looking for. He will then have himself to blame for returning the country into chaos,” they said.
Ruto is keen on luring the popular Luyha vote and securing the support of other minorities in the constituency such as the Kisii and the Kikuyu.
However, divisions rocking the Jubilee Party, amid claims Uhuru could be secretly supporting Raila's candidate, have created a big hurdle for Ruto.
Already, nominated MP Maina Kamanda and vocal Youth and Gender CAS Rachael Shebesh are among Jubilee MPs supporting the ODM candidate.
The two have accused Ruto of imposing Mariga on Jubilee and putting unnecessary pressure on the President, cornering him to endorse the ex-footballer in a brief photo-op.
Addressing women in Kibra, Shebesh claimed she was at State House when Ruto pressured the President to give Mariga his 'blessings'.
“On that day, when the President endorsed Mariga, I was in State House. I know how they mounted pressure on him, and how they gained entry to State House," she said.
However, in a veiled attack on Shebesh and Kamanda, the DP urged Jubilee supporters to ignore people he said were rejected by the electorate.
On that day, when the President endorsed Mariga, I was in State House. I know how they mounted pressure on him, and how they gained entry to State House
"All Jubilee party supporters should ignore and treat with utter contempt rebels and those rejected by the electorate who now deceptively purport to speak for the party leadership. Let's give Mariga our flagbearer moral, material and prayerful support. Victory is surely beckoning," Ruto tweeted last Saturday.
Kamanda lost the Starehe parliamentary seat to Charles Njagua, popularly knon as Jaguar, while Shebesh lost her Nairobi Woman Rep's position to ODM's Esther Passaris in 2017.
They both got a lifeline as Kamanda was nominated by ODM, while Shebesh got a CAS position, a post apparently created to award electoral losers.
Another Jubilee faction calling itself the Nairobi Business Community — which was pro-Jubilee in 2017 — has backed ODM's Imran, in what has further exposed the widening rifts in the party.
NBC chairman Wilfred Kamau, who addressed a press conference attended by Imran said they had consulted widely before arriving at the decision.
"We have decided to support Imran because of how he managed Kibra’s affairs, especially when Ken Okoth was in and out of hospital,” Kamau said.
Mariga, a Luyha native but largely seen as an alien in Kibra, is banking on the Luhya community in his political debut.
However, Mariga's undoing could be the divisions rocking his sponsoring, his political inexperience and claims that he is an alien in Kibra.
Imran is banking on his grassroots connections in Kibra and his late brother's development record.
Besides being the CDF chairman during his brother's tenure, the politician is also born and bred in Kibra, which gives him a competitive advantage.
Imran could also be leveraging the massive ODM support in the populous constituency that Rala represented as mP for 21 years.
In the race, Owalo, who also served as Raila's strategist ahead of the 2017 polls, is positioning himself as the best bet to end Raila's dominance in the constituency.
He is a well known political mobiliser who nearly won the ODM ticket for the 2017 polls.
However, his undoing, according to analysts, was his scathing attack on Raila before he decamped fromODM.
