A glimpse into the strange voting pattern of Nakuru residents
Nakuru city's skyline.
Over the years, Nakuru has seen vibrant and poised leaders who have graced it with the honour of serving the county in various political positions.
However, come elections, those who are unable to retain their seats tend to lose their political influence all together.
The perfect example for this case, would be non-other than the Former Member of Parliament for Gilgil Samuel Mathenge Nderitu.
Former Gilgil MP Samuel Mathenge.
Mathenge served the constituents of Gilgil diligently from March 2013 to July 2017 under the Jubillee Alliance. Soon after, a vibrant aspirant with a new promise came into the picture by the name of Martha Wangari.
Mathenge’s woes began after the jubilee party nominations where he lost to Martha. Unwilling to accept the outcome, he headed to court asking that the results of the nomination be nullified due to irregularities.
The court ruled however that the results be upheld, marking the beginning of the end for Mathenge’s political career.
In 2022, Martha Wangari switched sides and went ahead to join President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
At this point, Mathenge saw this as an opportunity to clench his seat back and being a loyalist to the Jubilee Party, he decided to go at the seat one more time.
But just as most of the country was taken over by the 'yellow wave’ so was Gilgil. Mathenge ended up losing the Gilgil seat garnering 19,764 votes while Martha Wangari got 35,363 votes.
With the significant difference in the votes, it is clear that the popularity of one Mathenge Samuel is slowly on the decline.
The next person whose political influence died a natural death was John Mututho.
Former Member of Parliament for Naivasha John Mututho.
Mututho gained popularity when he was able to clinch the Naivasha Parliamentary seat in 2007 and served in this capacity until 2013.He gained popularity when he came up with the famous ‘Mututho laws’.
In a bid to retain his seat in 2013, he overwhelmingly lost against John Kihagi while vying using the TNA ticket.
Mututho lost by over ten thousand votes. He tried his hope again in 2017 as he vied for Nakuru governor but lost.
Unrelenting, Mututho went up against Tabitha Karanja the UDA candidate during the 2022 election battling for the Senate seat.
He lost overwhelmingly to the now Senator, Tabitha Karanja who got 442,864 votes while Mututho secured 36,432 votes.
Considering they were both from Naivasha and he had been in the political limelight longer than Tabitha, it indeed goes to show that his political muscle was becoming frail.
If the trend sampled above truly represents the way Nakuru residents vote, then it goes without saying that any politician who lost a seat in any of the previous elections will have a hard time to convince the people to get another chance.
With the current political climate, all eyes are trained on the former county bosses, Kinuthia Mbugua and Lee Kinyanjui with many questioning their next move in 2027.
Should any of them come back and successfully unseat Governor Susan Kihika in the next election, then it will be a new dawn for politics in Nakuru County.