Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua moves through Mbeere North like a man rewinding time.
A green cap pulled low, a cane tapping red earth, dawn light catching those unmistakable bright-orange trainers.
Gachagua slips out of a mud-walled hut, jokes with grandmothers, shakes hands with boda riders, and chats with shopkeepers leaning on blue-painted shutters.
No security cordons. No loudspeakers blaring. Just a raw, almost old-school approach to retail politics: captured on film and in photographs, then rapidly shared across the internet in real time.
Riggy G has turned Mbeere North into his stage. Not with pomp, but with presence.
Not with convoys, but with kilometres walked before sunrise.
He is campaigning for Newton Karish of Democratic Party, a singer and grassroots mobiliser, as well as a former Member of the County Assembly (MCA) who possesses an intimate understanding of the villages, knowing them by their scents and soil.
The two men move like partners in a political duet: one humming nostalgia, the other pounding the tempo.
But beneath the laughter and handshakes lies a match wired to the core of Kenya’s power map.
Because this is not just a by-election. It is a stress test for the future.
UDA must win
Losing a seat in Mt Kenya – President William Ruto’s electoral backbone in the 2022 poll – would be a political bruise that rivals will replay endlessly.
Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, the official face of UDA in the region, needs a clean, uncontested victory to cement his rise as the new centre of power in the mountain.
For him, Mbeere North is a launchpad: win here, and you’re the region’s new organising axis.
Lose, and the whispers of “weak grip” get louder.
Riggy G must win
His entire political resurrection hinges on proving he still commands boots, hearts, and memory in the mountain.
Karish is more than a candidate; he is Rigathi’s message to Kenya Kwanza: you sidelined me too early.
A victory would turn the former DP into the comeback king: the man who can still pierce UDA’s armour from within the same region that once crowned them.
So the stakes tighten
UDA wants dominance. Rigathi wants relevance. Both want to own the narrative of who truly speaks for Mt Kenya.
And Mbeere North, small as it looks on a map, has become the hinge on which that political argument swings.
In market squares, people whisper that this feels less like a local poll and more like a shadow primary for the 2027 mountain crown.
Analysts warn that whichever side wins will claim moral ownership of the region’s direction: budgets, loyalties, and alliances will all be calibrated from this one result.
That is why Gachagua walks at dawn. That is why Kindiki rallies at dusk.
READ ALSO: Why Riggy G Is a Better Mt Kenya Kingpin Than Uhuru
That is why every handshake on that winding hill road seems heavy, electric, and historical.
Mbeere North isn’t voting for an MP. It is voting on who commands the mountain.
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