The MP-elect for Msambweni constituency in Kwale County Feisal Bader continues to savour his victory in the December 15 mini poll.
The Independent candidate was declared the MP-elect in the Tuesday by-poll after garnering 15,251 votes to trounce his main challenger ODM’s Omar Boga who polled 10,444 votes in the tight electoral race.
The mini-poll was occasioned by the death of area ODM MP Suleiman Dori who died in March.
Bader, 34, is a relative of the late ODM MP and was his long time personal assistant and campaign manager.
The newly elected MP held a huge prayers and thanksgiving party at his rural Gasi home in Kinondo ward, Msambweni sub county.
Kwale Governor Salim Mvurya who was Bader’s main backer in the campaigns led a host of local leaders in gracing the thanksgiving celebrations.
Mvurya who served his first term as an ODM Governor in the 2013 general polls before successfully defending his seat on a Jubilee party ticket in the 2017 general elections said the win for the independent candidate was an indication that ‘ODM is no longer the political powerhouse in the coastal region’.
The parliamentary contest was billed as a supremacy battle between ODM party leader Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto who backed the winning candidate.
Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho who is also the ODM deputy party leader led the campaigns for Boga, a former civic leader, while his Kwale counterpart drummed up support for Bader.
Bader said he thanks God and the people of Msambweni for his victory over the ODM party nominee who enjoyed the backing of his party machinery.
The youthful MP-elect who is still in a jubilant mood said the Gasi thanksgiving meeting was to thank the electorate who voted for him as an Independent candidate in the Tuesday by-election.
‘The thanksgiving meeting prayer is to express our gratitude to God for a successful by-election,” he said.
Bader has promised to give the education sector a priority in his short term as a legislator noting that it was crucial to alleviating poverty.
He said now that the by-election is over, it was time for residents and leaders to put political differences aside and join him in bringing development the in poll area.
Bader noted that for the vast coastal constituency to realize any meaningful development, the quality of education must be enhanced.
Meanwhile, the ODM party flag bearer in the mini-poll Omar Boga thanked the people of Msambweni for showing maturity in the hotly contested by-election.
“Strength grows in the moments when you think you cannot go on, but you keep going any way and we will live to fight another day,” he said.
By Hussein Abdullahi
