Wednesday, June 9, 2010

ODM supporter’s house burnt

An ODM supporter’s house was burnt in South Mugirango last night as campaigns for Thursday’s by-election came to a close.

Arsonists torched Kenari Kenyanga’s house ahead of the hotly-contested race. Mr Kenyanga was last night attacked while distributing ODM T-shirts and posters and his house in Tabaka set ablaze.

The incident came barely a day after youth attempted to block Higher Education Minister William Ruto’ s chopper from landing in Nyamarambe, on Monday.

Yesterday, ODM ministers Chris Obure, James Orengo, Anyang’ Nyong’o and the party candidate Ibrahim Ochoi condemned the incident. ODM also dismissed claims party youth took part in the incident.

They blamed security personnel for allowing another rally to be held at the venue where ODM had been licensed when their supporters had not left terming it "provocative".

The ministers claimed that their opponents wanted to incite their supporters into political violence and wondered why PDP’s Omingo Magara and Ruto wanted to address the very crowd they had reached out to.

"This is an act of cowardice. Our opponents have sensed defeat and that is why they were trying to employ dirty political tricks," claimed Ochoi.

Obure, Nyong’o and Orengo said Magara and his lieutenants had ran "bankrupt of ideas", therefore wanted to retreat to "dirty tricks" to win sympathy votes.

"Their ill-intentions will not cow us from mounting a vigorous door-to-door campaign to reclaim the seat. It belongs to us and we have extensively reached all parts of the constituency to win it back," said Obure.

The ODM leaders said their opponents were out to provoke their supporters to violence by trailing ODM moves instead of organising their own rallies. In the last three days, Magara has trailed the ODM campaign team from village-to-village and addresses the same crowds after the party rally has ended.

"It means they are disorganised that is why they are tracking us to undo what we have done. But they wont succeed," declared Ochoi.

Locked out

The ODM ministers were addressing the Press in Kisii town. They rooted for peaceful campaigns and vowed to ensure their supporters remain united ahead of tomorrow’s poll.

Present was Shinyalu MP Justus Kizito, Nominated MP Rachael Shebesh and a host of ODM supporters.

At another function, Magara claimed that there was a plot by ODM to rig the by-election.

He further claimed that Ford-People candidate Manson Oyongo had locked out people from his Nyamarambe clan, allegations Oyongo dismissed as "hot air".

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