Why Anne Waiguru is ready to ditch Jubilee

Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru could be on her way out of Jubilee after expressing fears that defending her seat on the party ticket in 2022 will be an uphill task.

"The truth of the matter is that defending my seat on a Jubilee ticket if the polls were held today would be very difficult," she said.

In a Citizen TV interview, Ms Waiguru noted that Jubilee had become unpopular in the Mount Kenya region.

She said if she ran on Jubilee and another person contested on a different party, she would have a rough time convincing the voters, even with a good record in service delivery.

She said the residents were dissatisfied with the way the party has been run over the past five years, insisting that Jubilee needs to be looked at internally and revamped for it to be acceptable to people from the region.

And while speaking in Gichugu Constituency as she inspected Kavote dispensary project, Ms Waiguru said she was yet to decide which political party she will use to defend her seat, adding that she would consult the people who elected her. In 2017, Ms Waiguru clinched the seat on a Jubilee ticket.

"I will go by the wishes of the residents. They are ones who have votes and if they tell me to join any other party of their choice I will exactly do so," she said.

At the same time, Ms Waiguru said the Mount Kenya region will support any presidential candidate who will agree to a power-sharing deal, listing a raft of issues he or she must promise to fulfil, including sharing of Cabinet positions, tea and coffee marketing, tarmacking of roads, and increased budgetary allocations to the region.

She said the region must negotiate for its people, adding that local leaders will want to know how many Cabinet secretary seats the region will get in the next government.

Ms Waiguru said the presidential candidate that will get the region's votes should promise his government will look into tea and coffee marketing problems faced by local farmers and explain how he will solve them.

“We would also like our roads tarmacked and ongoing projects completed. We can't blindly throw our weight behind any candidate eyeing the State House job without knowing how we shall benefit,” she added.

Ms Waiguru noted that the region is usually given a raw deal when it comes to sharing of political seats at the national level and the leaders should fight for the rights of the residents. Ms Waiguru said that the region will also demand from the presidential candidate equitable sharing of resources.

“We shall be pushing for a formula that will address inequalities without oppressing other Kenyans. Further discrimination in this area is unacceptable to us,” she stated.

“Agriculture can drive the economic changes we want to see in our communities. We, therefore, demand that the budgetary allocation be raised,” she said.

At the same time, Ms Waiguru accused local senior officials in the national government of frustrating her efforts to have residents living in the controversial South Ngariama ranch get title deeds.

“The officials have interest in this land and that is why they don't want title deeds issued,” she said, adding that the land has already been subdivided and allocated to the residents, but no registration has been done at the lands registry.

“There will be a lot of conflicts because some of the beneficiaries who have serious financial problems have started selling their land portions, yet such transactions are not being registered anywhere,” she said.