Kisumu Town Politics (tbt)

GRACE ONYANGO ,THE TREND SETTER WHO WAS CAUGHT UP IN THE VICIOUS POLITICAL BATTLE BETWEEN MBOYA AND ODINGA



Grace Onyango was the first African woman in Kenya to serve as mayor ,member of parliament and to sitt on the speaker’s chair as temporary deputy speaker.
Her political career began on April 1st 1965 after the death of the mayor of Kisumu Mathias P Ondiek who was also the first African mayor in Kenya .
Grace who was only 27 and a teacher at Kisumu Union primary school sent in her application requesting permission from the relevant council committee to allow her to act as the mayor for a period of 90 days until a new mayor was elected.
The application was approved and she started serving as the mayor in an acting capacity, teaching at Kisumu Union Primary School during the day and attending council meetings in the evenings.
Because she was also interested in the mayoral seat ,she used her 90 days of acting mayor to lay the ground work for her election campaign making the provision of housing her campaign platform.This eventually led to her ascension to the office of mayor.
However as mayor ,Onyango was caught up in a vicious political battle between two Luo political bigwigs Tom Mboya of KANU and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga of KPU with Mboya launching constant attacks on her.
Mboya who was a senior KANU official felt that Onyango who was elected on a KANU ticket was becoming more sympathetic to Jaramogi’s KPU.
Things became even more complicated when the mayor in all her political shrewdness refused to declare the the party she was supporting and instead took a middle ground.
Mboya wondered:" Is she KPU or is she KANU?" He demanded that onyango “Tell us where she stands and we will know where we (KANU) stand .” Mboya further doubted her allegiance to KANU and asked “How long can she go on buffling.”
When Mboya realized that Onyango had started supporting Odinga’s KPU openly he took the battle to her own Kaloleni ward in Kisumu.
While there Mboya declared:“KANU’S campaign in Kaloleni ward would be conducted as strongly and effectively as possible and at the end of August Kisumu will have a KANU mayor.”
Onyango who was undaunted challenged Mboya who was famous for his oratory skills to a debate that would settle the question of his popularity in Kisumu.
Mboya surprisingly declined making Onyango to retort in jest .“It appeared the honourable minister seemed to be over excited about my political influence in Kisumu.”
KANU government was however determined to smother KPU and disqualified Onyango and 21 other KPU candidates from the Kisumu civic election campaign in 1968.
The mayor argued that she had filed her nomination documents correctly and in full compliance of the law yet she was disqualified.
This even made Mboya to intensify attacks on her arguing :“Mrs Onyango is reaping the fruits she herself had sown …if she is asking for sympathy as a woman then she should leave politics.”
She was also not able to vie for a mayoral position in subsequent elections because the Kenyan parliament had limited the number of mayoral terms to four ,a move which she believed was engineered by Mboya the master tactician to cap her growing influence.
KPU was banned by KANU government in october 1969 making KANU the only party .All those KPU members including Onyango who wanted to continue with their political careers had to face the electorate once again in December 1969 on KANU tickets
Grace vied for a parliamentary seat on a KANU ticket on December 6 1969 and became the first elected Kisumu town MP
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Nkt

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hehehehe, naskia kuna fujo jiji, hebu leta story.

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Mimi apana relate na story za nubians.

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