Kenya presidential contenders pick rights champion, political campaigner as running mates By Reuters

By George Obulutsa and Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s high two presidential candidates have introduced their working mates, with veteran contender Raila Odinga choosing a champion of ladies’s rights and social justice and his rival William Ruto selecting a talented political campaigner.

Each chosen working mates are Kikuyus, Kenya’s most populous ethnic group, as Odinga and Ruto – who hail from different communities – search to draw Kikuyu votes.

Asserting his selection, Odinga, 77, on Monday named Martha Karua, a former justice minister who earned herself the nickname “Iron Woman” for tackling all comers in a male-dominated political panorama. She made her personal presidential bid in 2013 after serving in parliament for twenty years.

“I need to say this can be a second for the ladies of Kenya,” Karua stated.

Lawyer Karua served within the cupboard as minister for water, and as minister for justice from 2003-09. She resigned because of what she known as variations of opinion with the federal government of President Mwai Kibaki, together with on the appointment of judges.

Whereas unveiling her identify in entrance of 1000’s of ecstatic supporters, Odinga praised Karua for her reformist credentials.

“After 60 years (of Kenyan independence)… we can not excuse the male domination of the chief,” he stated.

Inside Kenyan political circles, Karua has a status for toughness and probity and has beforehand dismissed Kenyan politics as a “wealthy boys’ membership”.

Odinga’s transfer fractured his coalition instantly, after former vp Kalonzo Musyoka, who was Odinga’s working mate up to now two elections and had been amongst a number of candidates interviewed for the deputy place, declaring he would run for the presidency moderately than help him.

WEALTHY BUSINESSMAN

Ruto, Kenya’s present Deputy President, named Rigathi Gachagua as his working mate on Sunday. Gachagua is a primary time period parliamentarian from a populous constituency on the foot of Mount Kenya, the Kikuyu heartland, and a rich businessman.

The Kikuyu ethnic group has offered three out of Kenya’s 4 presidents since independence from Britain in 1963.

Thought to be an astute grassroots mobiliser, Gachagua beforehand served in authorities administration, together with a stint as an aide to Kenyatta earlier than he grew to become president.

Odinga – previously a veteran opposition chief who ran his earlier 4 races as an anti-establishment candidate – secured backing from the incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, after Kenyatta and Ruto fell out. Kenyatta is standing down because of time period limits and says Ruto is unfit to be president of Kenya, East Africa’s greatest economic system.

Ruto is wooing Kikuyu and different voters by pledging to shift the federal government’s financial focus from giant public works initiatives and large state-owned companies to small enterprises owned by what he calls “hustlers.”

Political analysts stated Ruto settled on Gachagua as a result of he managed to mobilise giant crowds for Ruto’s social gathering, the United Democratic Alliance, over the previous two years.

“Your story has been an inspiration to hustlers and all of us throughout Kenya, and I’m no exception,” Gachagua stated on Sunday after being unveiled as working mate.