Raila Odinga
ODM Party Leader Raila Odinga has admitted to making a mistake by dropping Westlands Member of Parliament Tim Wanyonyi from the Nairobi Gubernatorial race in the 2022 general election.
Speaking on Wednesday, November 15 Raila said Azimio lost the Nairobi Governorship because their candidate Polycarp Igathe who running on a Jubilee Party ticket was not good enough.
“We did not win the governorship not because we lacked support, but because the candidate we had was not suitable, that’s the reason. If we won the Senate, Women Representative, and the presidency, how could we lose the governorship?” he posed.
Wanyonyi had declared interest to run for the Nairobi Governorship but he was asked to step down in favour of Igathe.
He was offered the running-mate position but he declined and asked to be allowed to run for the Westlands MP seat.
“I regret it myself, I was told to tell Tim to step down. Tim was good enough, and he accepted. We wanted him to be a running mate but he refused. He said we should allow him to return to Westlands,” Odinga added.
The Azimio coalition in April 2022 unveiled Igathe as their 2022 general election gubernatorial candidate, and Philip Kaloki of Wiper as his running mate.
“As you know there were other members of our coalition who had expressed the desire to become governors; one of them is Timothy Wanyonyi. Wanyonyi has decided to step down from the governorship contest and go back and re-contest his seat as a member of the National Assembly for the Westlands Constituency,” Raila announced then.
The two however lost to Kenya Kwanza’s Johnson Sakaja and James Muchiri who were running on a UDA ticket. Sakaja garnered 699,392 votes while Igathe received 573,518 votes.
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