The individuals, some of who played key roles in the campaigns, risk losing political relevance after failing to clinch the nominations slots.
Cabinet ministers Sam Ongeri, Chirau Mwakwere and Charity Ngilu, Housing Assistant Minister Margaret Wanjiru and former Mvita MP Najib Balala are among prominent politicians whose names were missing from the list.
One elected member
Ms Ngilu and Mr Balala were part of Uhuru Kenyatta’s campaign team. Ngilu was listed as the first candidate for nomination to the Senate in the party list but her Narc party could not get the sufficient number of seats to earn her a nomination slot.
Narc has only one elected member in the Senate.
Balala’s Republican Party also did not secure any seat in Parliament and was, therefore, not allocated any slot. Ngilu and Balala both vied for election as senators in Kitui and Mombasa but lost.
Ongeri also failed to clinch Kisii County Senate seat won by Public Works Minister Chris Obure and his name was not among those forwarded by his party TNA to the IEBC.
Bishop Wanjiru, who vied for Nairobi County Senator’s seat but lost, was placed lower in ODM nomination list diminishing her chances of being nominated.
This leaves the politicians with Cabinet Secretaries, ambassadorial and Principal Secretaries’ appointments as their last hope.
But there is push and pull in the Jubilee coalition regarding recycling the same leaders given that it campaigned on a platform of generational change.
The constitutional provision capping the Cabinet posts at 22 and the requirement for regional diversity in making the appointments may also play to their disadvantage.
Public Health Minister Beth Mugo and Finance Assistant Minister Oburu Oginga are among those nominated by their parties.
IEBC gazetted the names of the nominees, 20 of them to the Senate and 12 to the National Assembly.
Top list
Ms Mugo, a cousin to the President-elect, and Mr Oburu, a brother to Prime Minister Raila Odinga, both top the list of the nominees in their parties.
The Public Health minister, who did not contest any post in the elections, would represent TNA as a woman nominated member in the Senate while Oburu would sit in the National Assembly as an ODM nominated member.
Nairobi Metropolitan Assistant Minister Elizabeth Ongoro has also been nominated as a woman member in the Senate under ODM.
Kanu has also nominated former Maendeleo ya Wanawake Chair Zipporah Kittony to sit in the Senate.
The nomination has also seen party officials rewarded, with TNA’s Chairman Johnson Sakaja being nominated to the National Assembly while ODM’s Executive Director Janet Ong’era is among women nominated to the Senate.
UDF Chairman Hassan Aden Osman was nominated to the National Assembly.
ODM, TNA and URP have three slots each in the National Assembly while UDF, Ford-K and Wiper have one each. ODM and TNA have six slots each in the Senate. URP has three while Ford-K, UDF, Wiper, APK and Kanu have one each.
- The Standard
