Three eye governors’ top seat

What you need to know:

  • The Nation established that senior Jubilee officials are planning to front Laikipia Governor Joshua Irungu or his Uasin Gishu counterpart Jackson Mandago for the position.
  • It was not immediately clear whether Cord would take a common position in the CoG elections and decide on whether to front any of its two governors for the position.

Three governors have locked horns in the race for the top leadership of the powerful Council of Governors (CoG), ahead of elections expected next month.

CoG vice-chairman Salim Mvurya, who is also Kwale governor, Mr Peter Munya (Meru) and Wyclife Oparanya (Kakamega) are the front runners in the race to replace Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto whose term expires next month.

Mr Munya is allied to the Jubilee Coalition while his two rivals are in Cord.

Yesterday, Mr Ruto said that he will be leaving office after successfully executing a mandate that also projected him as a champion of devolution.

“I defended my seat successfully and the law requires that you can only be elected once, then you defend it and leave,” Mr Ruto said.

The CoG will call a special convention to elect the new chairman after its conference in Kisumu expected to start on Tuesday next week.

“At the CoG, we do not campaign, we elect our officials by consensus and we do hope the same will happen again,” Mr Ruto said.

The Jubilee government is said to be keen on sponsoring a much more friendly person to take over from Mr Ruto in order to defuse the heat that often came its way from the CoG over implementation of devolution.

JUBILEE

The Nation established that senior Jubilee officials are planning to front Laikipia Governor Joshua Irungu or his Uasin Gishu counterpart Jackson Mandago for the position.
The council had an arrangement in which where the chairman and his vice would come from opposing political camps.

It was not immediately clear whether Cord would take a common position in the CoG elections and decide on whether to front any of its two governors for the position.

Cord has 25 of the 47 governors but a few of them have on several occasions wavered on Cord principles, making their position on the election hard to predict.

Campaigns for the position are expected to heat up next week when all the 47 governors converge in Kisumu for this year’s devolution conference.
Mr Ruto’s combative nature made him fall out with Deputy President William Ruto whose office has been in charge of driving the government’s devolution agenda.

“It is obvious that the government will be interested in ensuring it gets a fair voice in the position.

“It will not be looking for someone like Mr Ruto,” said one of the governors who declined to be named.