After a 15-year hiatus, groupings of elders and clan leadership have emerged to have a stake in the impending by-election in Malava constituency, Kakamega County.

Elders from some of the most populous clans have moved to identify their preferred candidates even before the National Assembly declares the seat vacant and the yet-to-be-constituted Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) sets the voting date.

The seat, which fell vacant following the demise of area MP Malulu Injendi in February has already attracted more that 20:aspirants drawn from the more than a dozen Kabras clans that dot the constituency.

The populous Abashuu, Abasonje, Abatobo, Abachezi and Abatali clans are set to square it out as their community leaders pick out their preferences.

Expansive clans

Though there are other candidates from the expansive clan, the Abashuu elders have settled on Senior Assistant Inspector General (SAIG) of Police Nelson Shilunji Taliti as their preferred candidate while the Abatali have identified former Malava High School Principal Daniel Mwachi at the expense of lawyer Lewis Shitanda and school principal Simon Kangwana..

The Abasonje clan from which the departed MP Malulu hailed is stalemated between the late lawmaker’s son Ryan Injendi, lawyer Edgar Busiega Mwanga, former Nominated Senator Naomi Shiyonga who is married into the clan and former Nominated MCA Lazarus Lucheveleli.

Though the Abasonje elders have had sit-downs with the quartet and President William Ruto’s personal assistant Farouk Kibet who contiuues to make forays in the constituency since Malulu’s death on behalf of the ruling Kenya Kwanza Alliance, they are yet to give their verdict on the trio.

Though management consultant and former Kenya School of Government (KSG) lecturer Caleb Sunguti has not publicly been endorsed by his Abatobo clan, he has already acquired the ticket from the Roots Party led by lawyer George Wajackoya and is already on the ground rolling out his mission and vision.

The secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Seth Panysko who came second to Malulu in the 2022 election and who is also from the Abatobo clan like Sunguti and Dr Enock Makanga, has been giving mixed signals since Malulu departed.

Quitting party

Panyako first announced that he would run for the seat on the UDA flag. But he later announced his exit from the outfit and has remained ambivalent since then, with one word having it that he plans to run for the Kakamega Senate seat while on the other hand he is said to be seeking to be the running-mate of Kakamega Governor Fernandes Baraza in 2027.

Clan politics gained relevance in the constituency between 1979 to 1997, during the tenure of populist lawmaker Joshua Mulanda Angatiia.

Malava constituency is dominantly inhabited by the Kabras sub-tribe of the Luhyia ethnic group.

Angatia, from the minority Abakhusia clan was elected on the account of strong Kabras patriotism that cropped up ahead of the 1979 election as a collective electoral rebellion against the then incumbent Burudi Nabwera from the Tachoni sub-tribe who had occupied the position for 10 years since trouncing another Tachoni, Jonathan Masinde Welangai in 1969.

For the years that Angatia was MP, he received strong backing from the Abasonje clan, the second most populous in the constituency after the Abashuu, and other least populated groupings.

Minority clan

Angatia was succeeded in 1997 by the late Housing Minister Peter Soita Shitanda who was from the equally minority Abatsikha clan, but whose election was dictated more by the pro-democracy politics of the day than numeracy in ethnic compositions, though he garnered unwavering support from the Abatali, Abasila, Abatobo, Abamuchi and pockets of other smaller communities in the area.

The largest Abashuu clan has produced one MP in the name of retired secondary school headmaster Nathan Sanya Anaswa who was elected in 1988 during the highly controversial Mlolongo (queue-voting) system.

Anaswa’s election was, however, nullified with only two months left to the 1992 General-Election on grounds that he had been irregularly elected.

Candidature for the impending by-election to replace Malulu has attracted over 20 aspirants, with Shiyonga – popularly known as Mama Signal – being the only woman in the race so far, seeking to run on the baner of UDA party.

Since indepence, all the six previous MPs for the area have been men in the persons of Welangai (1963-69), Nabwera (1969-79), Angatia (1979-1988, 1992-97), Anaswa (1988-1992), Shitanda (1997-2013) and Malulu (2012-2025).

Apart from pack-leaders Taliti, Ryan, Sunguti, Busiega, Shiyonga, Payako and Mwachi, others who have shown interest in the seat are activist Caleb Burudi, Dr. Enock Andanje, security expert Enock Makanga, Benjamin Nalwa, lawyer Shitanda, Lucheveleli, Samuel Tsimbwela Wesukari, Michael Murambi Angatia and Dr Daniel Wanangwe Kulecho.

The late Malulu was elected on the ticket of the Amani National Congress (ANC), then led by Prime Cabinet Secretary, Musalia Mudavadi.

ANC has since folded and merged with UDA in the countdown to the 2027 General -Election.

So far, Sunguti is the only aspirant who has acquired a party mandate to run for the vacant seat.

It will be an intricate affair for President Ruto and his candidate. His UDA party is the least popular and most loathed on the ground. It will take extra strategies and efforts to effectively market whoever the party settles on.