The appointment of former Chief of Kenya Defence Forces General Julius Karangi to lead voter registration mobilisation in Nyeri county has exposed an apparent leadership vacuum following the retirement of former President Mwai Kibaki from active politics.
Kibaki, who has been Nyeri’s political kingpin for decades, seems to have left the county without a uniting factor when he retired from active politics in 2013 after serving as president for 10 years.
According to sources privy to the appointment, Karangi may have been settled on by the Jubilee leadership because of the respect he commands across the political divide.
And the move seems to have had immediate effect. As soon as he was picked, Karangi hit the ground running by meeting with all leaders from the county.
After the meeting, the bickering among MPs and aspirants on one hand and the forces behind an organisation calling itself Mt Kenya Foundation seemed to have fizzled out.
Sources said Karangi and his team will coordinate all the teams which have been running a disjointed hunt for votes with little success. The county, which has more than 300,000 registered voters, is expected to register 130,000 more by the end of the mass voter registration exercise next week.
Only 40,000 had been registered by the end of last week. But Karangi says his team is confident the numbers will rise significantly in the final week.
“Through a door-to-door campaign, we expect to register more voters in the remaining period though we are unlikely to meet the target,” he said. Leaders, he added, had agreed to shelve their political interests and focus on voter mobilisation.
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