Last week’s victory for David Ochieng was the first ever victory since Independence in Ugenya by a candidate of a party not associated with the Odinga family.
But Ochieng’ strongly disassociated himself from Deputy President William Ruto and his allies and asked them to stop taking credit for his decisive personal victory in the Ugenya by-election last Friday.
The 39-year old lawyer trounced ODM’s Chris Karan in the parliamentary contest that has left ODM leaders in shock.
He garnered 18,730 votes against the ODM candidate’s 14,507 in the four-man race.
While Speaking to The Star in an exclusive interview, Ochieng’ took a swipe at Siaya Senator James Orengo who led the ODM campaigns, saying his style of politics no longer works in the modern-day scenarios.
“Orengo’s politics is gone. He has refused to change his university type of politics which no longer works for the masses,” Ochieng’ stated.
He attributed his sweet victory win to his development track record, his campaign tactics largely driven by women voters and his determination not to cast the by-election as a contest against Raila Odinga.
According to Ochieng’, during the 63 days of intense campaigns, he took a low profile by avoiding public rallies as well as ‘staying off microphones and media interviews’.
Unknown to many is that Ochieng’ singlehandedly built and prosecuted his election petitions from the High Court to the Supreme Court.
Ochieng’ said he was sure the media would bill the vote as a contest between him and Raila.
“It was a strategy to defuse the rumour that I had a lot of money. It helped in a big way to make my opponent relax. I avoided the media like the plague since they were going to hype it as a war between me and Raila,” Ochieng’ was quoted by the local daily.
Ochieng’, believed to have a formidable financial war chest, traversed the constituency like a simple man, once in a while on a bicycle. No big entourage.
The move, he said, made his opponents relax, thinking that he did not have enough resources to wage a serious political contest against the Raila-led party.
However, Ochieng’ confesses that the vote was extremely expensive but friends and colleagues, some of whom he did not expect, pitched in.
“There are guys who could send me Sh2,000, Sh5,000 at times Sh20,000. My lawyer friends and those we worked with at Igad also came in handy. There were days we could spend up to Sh1 million in a day,” he said
Ochieng’ adopted a door-to-door campaign which allowed him to drive home his well-honed development message.