The battle for Marakwet West parliamentary race has started in earnest pitting the incumbent and youthful aspirants salivating for the seat.
Timothy Kipchumba, a lawyer and Benson Cheserek, a US based resident have put on a spirited battle to unseat William Kisang.
Kisang will be asking voters to elect him for the third round.
Others are educationists Samuel Chepkole and Richard Chemweno who have previously contested for the seat and lost.
In their blueprints, the youthful politicians are adopting a paradigm shift on ways to tackle representation and issues affecting the locals.
On the other hand, the incumbent is pegging his reelection based on his performance record.
Kipchumba is edging his campaigns on his legal knowledge.
He says it is vital for representation of the people.
He says issues affecting residents have not been well articulated in the August house.
The Elgeyo Marakwet county assembly legal advisor, says through his work, he has amassed knowledge on peoples representation.
He intends to use the same in articulating the issues affecting his constituents in the floor of the house.
“The role of a legislator is to stand on the floor of parliament and articulate issues concerning the residents. We have never seen our representatives stumping authority and speaking on issues affecting us let alone sponsoring a motion on the same”, Kipchmba said.
His campaign christened Lapkei Tai loosely translates to ‘the future is bright’.
Kipchumba’s key issues are inclusivity, oversight, legislation and representation.
On his part, Cheserek who is giving the seat a second stab having come up second in the 2017 election is campaigning with emphasis on people empowerment and education.
According to his social media platforms, he boasts of international networking that he aims to utilize in a bid to bring change through empowerment of the youth.
He says the region needs to be opened up for international investors saying his international connections will come in handy.
On education, the 43 year old says that increasing bursary allocation and transparency in the process would be his priority, with the vision of enabling many students to attain education.
Noting that students are currently underfunded, he says this has denied them access to education hence derailing the 100 per cent transition.
Attainment of technical skills through enrolling the youth to technical learning institutions, he says is the way to empower the youth.
Cheserek whose campaign slogan is dubbed kasi kityo (It is only Work) also has employment, improvement of infrastructure and representation in his campaign list.
With the region being Deputy President William Ruto’s political base, majority of aspirants will be facing off in the UDA primaries.
Silas Benjamin, a political commentator says most of the political aspirants craft impressive agendas.
He asked voters to do proper interrogation of each candidate.
Benjamin says there is much to be done to enable the electorate to make informed decisions.
“For the electorate, there is still much to be done. It looks like they don’t understand why and what they need. Lyrics seem to work for the aspirants,” he said.
