You are in for a tough battle, staggering Kanu tells Jubilee

Baringo Senator Gideon Moi and Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto are plotting a fight to regain some of their base after Deputy President William Ruto wiped out Kanu’s support in the Rift Valley by engineering mass defections to Jubilee Party.

Mr Moi’s Kanu suffered some of the heaviest losses as members of the National Assembly elected on the party ticket ditched the grand old party for Jubilee two weeks ago.

Governor Ruto who was thinking about popularising his Chama Cha Mashinani party, has even hinted at backing President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election bid.

It has now emerged that Kanu is planning to finance promising candidates to run in the 2017 General Election in a move aimed at complicating matters for Jubilee.

Senator Moi, the son of retired president Daniel arap Moi, is fabulously wealthy and could deploy a serious campaign war chest in an election that is expected to be bitterly fought.

In the last election, voters in some parts of the country rejected party leaders’ six-piece call and elected people of their choice.

In the Rift Valley, Kanu ran away with four National Assembly seats, two senate seats and one governorship.

And while most of these went to the UhuRuto fold during the recent launch of JP, Senator Moi is banking on the expected fall-out after the primaries.

The allure of Kanu has become all the more urgent after the collapse of many government-friendly parties and the repeal of election laws to lock out last-minute defectors.

The Kanu boss has in recent days escalated his rhetoric against the deputy president, a man the Moi dynasty sees as a blooper in the rise of the son of the former president to the helm of Kalenjin politics.

Two weeks ago, Kanu lost five of its nine top elected leaders to Jubilee.

STILL ON TOP
The party’s only person elected as governor, West Pokot’s Simon Kachapin, was snapped by new party.

Mogotio MP Hellen Sambili — who owes her political career to the Mois — also jumped ship, further driving DP Ruto’s knife to the Moi family’s heart.

Others who defected were Kuresoi North MP Moses Cheboi, Belgut’s Eric Keter, and Mr Samuel Moroto of Kapenguria.

So brutal was Jubilee’s onslaught on Kanu that the independence party was left with only Senator Moi’s brother Raymond (Rongai), Mr Shadrack Mwita (Kuria West) and the party’s most loyal soldier, West Pokot Senator John Lonyangapuo.

Kanu secretary-General Nick Salat on Thursday said Jubilee should not celebrate just yet.

“The day they (defectors) left, the traffic that has been streaming in for tickets is huge. We want to retain the seats we had and win more,” Mr Salat told the Nation.

Mr Salat, who will contest the Bomet Senate seat, said Kanu would fund candidates in the vast region and “other parts of the country”.

DP Ruto needs absolute support in his Kalenjin backyard as a launch pad for his stab at the presidency in 2022, and for entrenching his position and a partner in Jubilee Party.