Johnstone Muthama’s break with Wiper may cost him more than party
What you need to know:
- Muthama's endless conflicts with Governor Alfred Mutua are criticised as disruptive and tactless.
- Wavinya looked a better bet to take the fight to Mutua.
- If Kalonzo Musyoka shares one overriding desire with Muthama, it is to see Mutua ousted in Machakos.
I have never seen Senator Johnstone Muthama of Machakos so furious like when he announced his break with the Wiper party last week.
He could not restrain himself in his attack against the party he has been one of the most prominent members and financiers of.
Obviously, Wiper’s choice to hand a direct ticket for the Machakos gubernatorial race to Ms Wavinya Ndeti had pricked the senator to the bone.
In a futile attempt to initially calm waters, the party had carried out a two-stage nomination process (the first was nullified by a tribunal) in which in both cases Wavinya scored a suspiciously whopping 200,000-plus vote count over her opponent, Bernard Kiala, who could only manage 4,000-odd votes.
Kiala has been Muthama’s stooge in Machakos.
BITTER WARS
As the deputy governor, he has been his frontman in waging Muthama’s bitter wars against Governor Alfred Mutua, a man the senator makes no secret he loathes with a passion.
However, even if the nomination tally in favour of Wavinya appeared to have been quite inflated Kiala, by most people’s reckoning, had genuinely lost.
Trouble for Muthama is, Kiala is not a popular politician, even among those Machakos residents who are not enamoured with Mutua.
His endless conflicts with Mutua are criticised as disruptive and tactless.
I think Wiper was not just out to embarrass Muthama in this instance.
BETTER BET
They knew from their grassroots assessments that Kiala was a non-starter. Wavinya looked a better bet to take the fight to Mutua.
If Kalonzo Musyoka shares one overriding desire with Muthama, it is to see Mutua ousted in Machakos.
It will be an uphill task nonetheless, especially now the Wiper house in Machakos is in a bit of confusion.
Muthama’s anger is driven by other related concerns.
He has watched Governor Kivutha Kibwana’s ascendancy in Wiper and the way he was given a direct ticket to defend his seat even though he was technically defecting from another party, Muungano.
SMALL PARTY
The same was the case with Wavinya who was coming from another small party, Chama Cha Uzalendo.
Muthama saw in them Johnny-come-latelys, not assets to Wiper.
The senator’s wrath had further been stoked by what he considered to be the bad treatment meted out to party chairman David Musila, who was overlooked for the Kitui gubernatorial ticket in favour of the incumbent, Julius Malombe. Musila has since left the party in a huff.
These concerns – especially in the case of Musila – are widely shared by many among the Wiper mainstream in Ukambani.
But none of them is willing to support Muthama after the way he exploded against party leader Kalonzo.
CARRIES CLOUT
Wiper still carries clout in Ukambani. Muthama may have been for years a pivot of the party.
Still, he will discover without the Wiper anchor he will be of little consequence in the region.
His subsequent utterances have not quite cleared the air about where he stands.
At one point he said he had not left Wiper, clarifying that he had only opted not to run for any seat on the party’s ticket.
He also said he would only campaign for Raila Odinga, not Kalonzo. As many people wondered, aren’t the two on the same ticket?
ISSUED DIRECT TICKET
If Muthama had assumed the party leadership would come running to seek to placate him, he miscalculated.
Wiper quickly issued a direct ticket for the senatorial seat to a former Machakos County functionary, Jackson Kala.
Muthama’s relationship with the Wiper brass had already soured over his perceived special closeness to ODM.
Kalonzo once publicly chided him on this, telling him he was not putting much effort to have him picked as the joint presidential candidate.
Indeed, there is an undercurrent of sentiment in Ukambani that Muthama was more interested in pushing Raila for that position.
ASSESSING ALL CARDS
To be fair to the senator, he read the situation more realistically after assessing all the cards on the table, unlike Francis Nyenze who had started to complain that Wiper would walk away if a 2012 MoU was dishonoured by ODM.
I was surprised when Mutua waded into the Machakos nomination controversy, which was Wiper’s business, not his.
It then occurred to me that he was miffed by the stated high tallies – which he called “fake” – because they would imply he stood no chance against the Wiper candidate.
