The battle for the Ugenya parliamentary seat between David Ochieng of the Movement for Democratic Growth (MDG) and ODM's Chris Karan was like the biblical story of David vs Goliath.
That popular story from the scripture teaches a lesson of courage, faith, and overcoming what seems impossible.
The story tells of the Philistine giant who King Saul, who was in charge of the Israelites, feared and could not honour his invite to war.
But David, despite being young and with zero experience in war, did not fear the well-built giant; he saw an opportunity to hit without a miss.
This was the case in Ugenya. Another David of MDG was fighting Goliath (ODM).
It was a story of courage for Ochieng despite what seemed like "project impossible".
Ugenya is the home place of Senator James Orengo who is one of the engines behind ODM. He is a political bigwig who was once described as a political animal by ex-Jubilee vice chair David Murathe.
During the campaigns, Orengo dismissed the MDG candidate as inexperienced and unable to take on ODM – one of Kenya’s biggest political parties.
ODM party leader Raila Odinga went to campaign for the party’s candidates and asked voters not to embarrass him.
In a place where Raila enjoys fanatical support, challenging its candidate wanted a politician with steel balls; and that is what Ochieng was!
The win did not come easy as he started by challenging Chris Karan’s 2017 win at the court. He cited electoral malpractices and the election was nullified.
However, Karan moved to the Court of Appeal which overturned the nullification on August 16.
Refusing, to give up, Ochieng pursued the matter to the Supreme Court which again nullified the election setting the path for a by-election.
Ochieng was a member of ODM before he was ejected for alleged disloyalty. He went and formed his party – MDG – whose logo is maize.
During the campaigns, he promised Ugenya residents of rescuing them from the fetters of bad politics.
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