The Electoral Commission has at this eleventh hour adjusted the constituency boundary between Kisauni in Mombasa and neighboring Mvita consitituency in a move that affects close to 10,000 voters.
ODM has gone to court to block the move and as the electoral commission asked for more time to prepare their case, an incredulous High court judge yesterday bluntly told the ECK that they have no case.
Meanwhile in Kisauni there have been demonstrations over the last 3 days against this puzzling move by the ECK. The voters on the ground are very clear in their mind where all this is coming from. They blame the outgoing MP of the area Anania Mwaboza for ganging up with the government to ensure that he is voted back to parliament in an area that is rabidly ODM. Interestingly the part of Kisauni ceded out to Mvita by the ECK is a stronghold of Mwaboza’s main challenger Ali Hassan Joho.
Could this have been one of the reasons behind the recent appointment of a new commissioner who has been practicing law in Mombasa?
I am getting a very bad feeling here. Many strange events reported recently remind me very much of Moi’s arithmetical games in those shams that Kenyans dared call General elections in the 90s. The idea here is to not only get Mwaboza back into parliament but to mainly secure the incumbent president’s 25% in the province, which is looking increasingly remote as the majimbo debate heats up.
I will deal with this Majimbo issue here soon but what you need to know now is that Coast voters will hear of nothing else but majimboism. The last nail on PNU’s coffin in Coast province came earlier today when the Shirikisho party distanced itself from Ali Mwakere’s support of the President and announced that they would officially withdraw from being a PNU affiliate party at a Shirikisho delegates conference slated to take place soon.
Some PNU officials may not be very sad to see Shirikisho go. The PNU campaign at the Coast, led by Uhuru Kenyatta has been very confusing for voters because PNU are breathing fire against Majomboism while Mwakere stands up in the same meeting and supports the majimbo agenda but says that Shirikisho are supportinmg President Kibaki instead of supporting the presidential candidate pushing for Majimboism or devolution of government as spelled out in the trashed Bomas Draft.
