{"id":397066,"date":"2026-08-27T00:51:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/397066\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T00:51:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:51:35","slug":"elders-in-eldoret-back-rutos-second-term-warn-against-goonism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/397066\/","title":{"rendered":"Elders in Eldoret back Ruto\u2019s second term, warn against goonism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9e4a29a0-650e-4d5e-a426-72804facaac4.webp\" style=\"max-width: 100%; width: 100%;\"\/>Vice Chairman of the Luo Council of elders in Eldoret Maricus Orinda (L) with\u00a0Huruma ward ODM politician Fred Ochieng<\/p>\n<p>Elders from various communities in Eldoret have endorsed&#13;<br \/>\nPresident William Ruto\u2019s re-election bid.<\/p>\n<p>The elders said the President has delivered on most of his&#13;<br \/>\npromises and deserves another term to complete projects initiated across the&#13;<br \/>\ncountry.<\/p>\n<p>The elders also called for an end to political goonism,&#13;<br \/>\nwarning that the use of gangs during political activities poses a threat to&#13;<br \/>\nnational security as Kenya heads towards the 2027 General Election.<\/p>\n<p>The elders, drawn from the Kalenjin, Luhya, Kisii, Kikuyu&#13;<br \/>\nand Luo communities, among others, urged politicians to preach peace and unity&#13;<br \/>\nduring campaign meetings.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at Huruma Primary School in Eldoret, the elders&#13;<br \/>\nwere led by Mzee Paul Arab Chesingil, David Nyambane, Vice chairman of the Luo&#13;<br \/>\nCouncil of Elders Maricus Orinda, and Women Representative Dorcas Chebet, among&#13;<br \/>\nothers.<\/p>\n<p>The elders were attending a meeting where they endorsed Fred&#13;<br \/>\nOchieng to contest the Huruma MCA seat on an ODM ticket in the 2027 elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are here as elders first to ask our people from all&#13;<br \/>\ncommunities to ensure they keep peace and unity at all times, especially as we&#13;<br \/>\nhead to the elections next year. As a nation, we cannot achieve anything&#13;<br \/>\nwithout peace, and that should always be the main priority for all of us,\u201d&#13;<br \/>\nOrinda said.<\/p>\n<p>He said the elders were opposed to the use of goons by&#13;<br \/>\npoliticians during campaign meetings and called on security agencies to deal&#13;<br \/>\nfirmly with those seeking to cause anarchy for selfish interests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose vying for seats should campaign peacefully and&#13;<br \/>\npersuade voters instead of seeking to use goons. We are a democratic country&#13;<br \/>\nand people should be free to choose the leaders they wish to have,\u201d Orinda&#13;<br \/>\nsaid.<\/p>\n<p>He said the elders had endorsed Ochieng because they&#13;<br \/>\nbelieved in his leadership qualities, but urged him to compete fairly while&#13;<br \/>\nmaintaining peace and unity among residents.<\/p>\n<p>Huruma Ward has more than 35,000 registered voters, making&#13;<br \/>\nit one of the wards with the largest voter populations in the Rift Valley&#13;<br \/>\nregion.<\/p>\n<p>The largely cosmopolitan ward covers a significant part of&#13;<br \/>\nEldoret and has traditionally attracted heated campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>Ochieng pledged to make peace and unity central to his&#13;<br \/>\ncampaign and urged fellow aspirants to do the same.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know I have a good plan for Huruma ward, and I urge all&#13;<br \/>\nthose who will be vying to focus on how we can use leadership to improve the&#13;<br \/>\nlivelihoods of the people of Huruma and other Kenyans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Orinda also praised Ruto, saying the President had done well&#13;<br \/>\nin bringing together communities and ensuring government projects were&#13;<br \/>\ninitiated across the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRuto\u2019s work can be seen in all parts of the country and, as&#13;<br \/>\nelders, we believe he needs a second term to complete the good work he has&#13;<br \/>\ninitiated in all sectors and in all counties across the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Nyambane and Chesingil urged Kenyans to scrutinise the&#13;<br \/>\nrecords and plans of politicians before voting for them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt least for Ruto, we can see the work he has done and we&#13;<br \/>\ncan use that record to ask Kenyans to give him a second term so that he can&#13;<br \/>\ncomplete the ongoing projects,\u201d Chesingil said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vice Chairman of the Luo Council of elders in Eldoret Maricus Orinda (L) with\u00a0Huruma ward ODM politician Fred&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[31],"tags":[80,351,352,98,100,36736,353,101,350,99],"class_list":["post-397066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kenya","tag-kenya","tag-kenya-news","tag-star","tag-star-news","tag-star-news-kenya","tag-star-newspaper","tag-star-newspaper-kenya","tag-the-star","tag-the-star-kenya","tag-the-star-newspaper"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117164736319025716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}