Mugo seeks Kikuyu vote for PNU's yusuf

Monday, 09 May 2011 00:04 BY HENRY WANYAMA

VOTE HUNT: Beth Mugo, Hassan Yusuf and Fedinand Waititu in PCEA church in Kamukunji.

THE Party of National Unity is clearly in the hunt for the Kikuyu vote or it's candidate in the Kamukunji by election Yusuf Hassan Cabinet minister Beth Mugo yesterday led the party to campaign for Yusuf. Mugo took the party’s campaign to Bahati's Presbyterian Church of East Africa which is largely Kikuyu dominated church.
“We have to support others, because Kenya is bigger,” Mugo said in an apparent reference to the Kikuyu community which is allegedly not known to voting for other people.
The Kamukunji by-election on May 23 has PNU’s Yusuf and ODM’S Ahmed Ibrahim as main contenders for the seat. Another candidate is Narc Kenya’s Brian Weke. Immediate former MP Simon Mbugua, a Kikuyu failed to clinch the PNU nomination ticket.
The vote from the community holds the key on who will become the new MP and Mugo told the church service that she had been send by President Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, and VP Kalonzo Musyoka to woo voters for Yusuf.
Mugo added: “We should vote for him and not divide our votes the way it has happened before. It should be a test for 2012.” She said complaints that the Somali community has taken plots in Kamukunji should not arise because a Somali has never been MP. “It is one of our own that have been Kamukunji MP in the past,” Mugo said and added that Yusuf has pledged to work with every community.
As part of the campaign pledges, Mugo said she will look into the problems afflicting Bahati Health centre. Present also was water assistant minister Ferdinand Waititu who is also Embakasi MP in Nairobi.
It is said that Kikuyus do not vote for other people, but we want you to support Yusuf, Waititu said as he sought to explain to the church in Kikuyu. Waititu said: “People think that the Mt Kenya Region cannot vote for others. We believe that Kenya is big and belongs to all of us.”
The call for the church membership to support Yusuf a Somali is an attempt to break a belief among the rest of Kenyans that Kikuyus do not vote for other people.
Yusuf said he was not in the race get a salary. “The Kamukunji problem is lack of development conscious leadership,” Yusuf said.