Raila: I regret asking Wanyonyi to drop Nairobi governor bid

Piece by: MAUREEN KINYANJUI

16 November 2023

• Raila stated that the Azimio la Umoja Coalition won majority seats in Nairobi but lost the governor position.

• On May 1, 2022, Wanyonyi said he agreed not to run for the top county seat because his party leader had been cleared to run for President under the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Alliance.

ODM leader Raila Odinga on Wednesday revealed that Westlands MP Tim Wanyonyi was the better candidate for the Nairobi gubernatorial seat.

Speaking in Westlands, Raila stated that the Azimio la Umoja Coalition won majority seats in Nairobi but lost the governor position.

"I regret it myself, I was told to tell Tim to step down. Tim was good enough and he accepted it. We wanted him to be a running mate but he refused. He said that instead, he was going back to Westlands,” he said.

On April 22, 2022, Azimio unveiled Polycarp Igathe (Jubilee party) as its gubernatorial candidate and Philip Kaloki (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," Raila said then.

"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."

On May 1, 2022, Wanyonyi said he agreed not to run for the top county seat because his party leader had been cleared to run for President under the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Alliance.

He said under the pact with other Azimio affiliate parties, it had been decided that ODM would take the presidential bid while the Jubilee Party of former President Uhuru Kenyatta would carry the coalition's flag in the Nairobi governor contest.

"Because of the arrangement of parties to work together, it comes along with its challenges. And it is due to those challenges that it was agreed that because ODM had been given the presidency, we had to relinquish the Nairobi Governor’s seat for Jubilee,” he said.

However, the duo ( Igathe and Kaloki) lost to Kenya Kwanza's Johnson Sakaja and Njoroge Muchiri.

In September 2023, Wanyonyi exuded confidence that he would clinch the Nairobi Governor seat in the 2027 general election.

Speaking in Kakamega, Wanyonyi said he was poised to become the county's chief executive at the August 9 polls but boardroom consensus in the Azimio coalition cost him the opportunity.

"As Westlands MP last election I was contesting for the position of the governor of Nairobi and everybody knew who was going to win. I dropped out because of infighting and coalition agreements," he said.