The Azimio One Kenya presidential candidate Raila Odinga has named Martha Karua as his running mate setting the stage for a bruising battle with the Ruto-Gachagua ticket.
Making the announcement on Monday, May 16 at KICC, the ODM leader said he settled on Karua because of her transformative agenda.
The ODM leader picked the Narc-Kenya leader from a list of three possible candidates forwarded to him by the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition party running-mate selection panel.
“The person who holds this office cannot be a competitor to the President. We have decided that the holder of this office has to be a woman.
“I am a man of my words, I will ask her to finish what we started, she’s a safe pair of hands….. she is Martha Wangari Karua
Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka who was among the shortlisted candidates skipped the event.
The panel had also interviewed governors Charity Ngilu, Hassan Joho, Lee Kinyanjui, Wycliffe Oparanya, Murang’a Woman Representative Sabina Chege, Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya, and former Emgwen MP Stephen Taurus.
With both Raila and Ruto picking a running mate from Mt Kenya, it now remains to be seen who will deliver more votes from the vote-rich region.
In fact sources intimate to Kivumbi.co.ke that the fact that Raila Odinga would have used the choice of Deputy President to lock out his main challenger, Ruto, out of the vote-rich Mt Kenya region was the main reason why Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua was picked to be Ruto’s running-mate.
Even though the Tharaka Nithi Senator Kithure Kindiki emerged based on opinion polls funded by UDA, his inability to marshal votes worked against him.
And with all indications that the ODM leader will pick Karua as the running mate, the supremacy battle between Mt Kenya West and East came into play.
Mt Kenya’s 10 counties control 5,824,020 votes, with Meru having 780,858 voters, Tharaka-Nithi (234,618), Embu (337,627), Nyeri (492,046), and Kirinyaga (378,580). Others are Murang’a (628,416), Kiambu (1,293,309), Laikipia (265,842), Nyandarua (362,357), and Nakuru (1,050,367).
Both Karua and Gachagua come from the Mt Kenya West voting bloc that has 4,470,917 registered voters.
