The nomination of ODM top brass into President William Ruto’s Cabinet has thrown the spanners to the fireworks in Mombasa political scene.
Ruto’s actions of including former Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho in his Kenya Kwanza Government has relatively turn Mombasa political tables upside down, sending many politicians from both political factions back to the drawing board.
The ODM Deputy Party Leader, stepped his foot into Mombasa politics clinching Kisauni Parliamentary seat in 2008 general elections, and has since then focused on building his political career to the highest level.
Joho who has been fronted by Ruto to take the Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs docket has been a major stake in ODM politics and more so, the Coast political scene.
He is taking over from his predecessor Salim Mvurya who has been moved to the Trade and Investments docket.
With an aim of distabilising the opposition and further switching off the critical roles of the opposition in checking and oversighting the government, Joho’s entrance in the government has sent Mombasa political scene in a boiling pot that will leave anyone poking with facial burns.
Joho, became Kisauni Member of Parliament in 2008 throug to 2013 where he became the first Mombasa Governor, a position he held through to 2022 when he handed it to another ODM politician Abdulswamad Sharif Nassir.
However, ODM Party Leader Raila Odinga and his Deputy Ali Hassan Joho played a bigger role in securing Nassir the Mombasa top seat. The two denied the most vibrant Mombasa candidate by then Suleiman Shahbal ODM ticket and promised him the EALA seat, which they did, paving a soft landing for Nassir to the Mombasa Gubernatorial seat.
The seat he is struggling to keep even as the Mombasa political scene is flipping and things falling apart every morning.
Mombasa Governorship seat remains the hotly contested, with several politicians from both factions striving to make Nassir a one term Governor.
Now that the difference is the same between the ruling Party UDA and the opposition ODM with very top slots being; Treasury, Energy, Cooperatives and Mining going to the opposition, the very people who opposed Kenya Kwanza manifesto but now expected to fully implement it, Mombasa politics have been stirred and thrown back to the drawing board or rather under the table.
Already three top Mombasa UDA politicians; Ali Menza Mbogo, former Kisauni MP and LAPSSET Development Authority Chairperson, Hassan Omar Hassan who is the Party Vice Chairperson and EALA MP, as well as Nyali MP, the only UDA MP in Mombasa, Mohammed Ali have shown interest to topple Governor Nassir in the 2027 Mombasa Gubernatorial race.
An axe for Nassir to grind, his ODM faction too has been on his neck with at least two candidates expressing their thirst to unseat Nassir in 2027 Mombasa Governorship race.
Mombasa investor cum politician who is also EALA MP Suleiman Shahbal and Mombasa County Assembly Speaker Aharub Khatri have been mentioned as the main Nassir opponents, Khatri has not openly declared, but the political signs remains bare.
Joho was once the country’s Transport Assistant Minister in the late Mwai Kibaki’s government back in March, 2012 when ODM Leader Raila Odinga was the Prime Minister, a position he clinched after a political deal was inked following the ugly occurrences that came as a result of the bungled 2007 general elections that yielded the 2007/8 post election violence. Over 1,500 people were killed then.
Ruto’s actions has changed the political beats in both ODM and UDA with both political factions in Mombasa making additions and subtractions within their political steps and minds.
