Governor Hassan Joho is reportedly working on a secret line-up of all political seats in the port city of Mombasa ahead of the 2022 general elections.
Joho who has indicated he wants to contest for presidency when his second term comes to an end is also keen to put in place a successor, senator, MPs and MCAs who are loyal to him.
Sources close to the plan say, Likoni MP Mishi Mboko is among those under consideration by the county chief as preferred successor.
Mboko is viewed as loyal and the thinking is that such a person will not betray the governor’s interests. At the same time, with Mboko at the helm of the county, Joho calculates he would still have a say on county affairs from outside.
Likoni MP Mishi Mboko
It is said initially Joho had thought of supporting the county assembly speaker Aharub Khatri to take over from him but has since changed his mind after he discovered the speaker could become a man of his own.
A few months ago, the speaker embarrassed Joho after he pushed MCAs to impeach some of his executives against his advice. The MCAs ganged up against Tawfiq Balala, a close ally of the governor and proceeded to impeach him. However, the MCAs later backpedaled on the impeachment.
At the same time, several of Joho’s advisers do not see-eye-to eye with the speaker whom they accuse of arrogance. As for his deputy William Kingi, insiders in Joho camp view him as someone who cannot be trusted with their interests. Besides, they dismiss him as lacking financial muscle to oil a high profile campaign.
The former lecturer is however from the populous Mijikenda who make the majority of voters in Mombasa but highly divided during elections. If he were to contest, he would compete for the Mijikenda vote with Kisauni MP Ali Mbogo and former Mombasa county secretary Francis Thoya.
It is rumoured Joho is not comfortable with Mohamed Faki retaining the Mombasa senator seat. He wants Changamwe MP Omar Mwinyi to shelve his governor ambition and instead contest for senator.
It is said only a handful of MCAs in the current assembly who are in the list. Most of them have fallen out of favour with the governor. They complain that unlike their counterparts in other counties, they have been financially suffocated by the Mombasa governor.
For the MPs’ seats, the governor would want to see Mohamed Ali of Nyali kicked out and his place taken over by his cousin Said Abdalla aka Saido. In Kisauni, the governor wants to Rashid Bedzimba to make a comeback. Mbogo has already been politically tamed after the governor’s seat was dangled to him.
In Mvita, the Joho candidate is Mohamed Soud aka Machele. The MP Abdulswamad Nassir is being sidelined after he was made to believe he would inherit the governor’s seat.
In Jomvu, one Liban is Joho’s choice even though some in his camp have proposed Karisa Nzai who contested for the seat on a Jubilee party ticket and narrowly lost to Badi Twalib who has since rebelled against the governor and is in William Ruto’s camp.
On CS Najib Balala and Suleiman Shahbal who have separately embraced Joho, sources say, the governor does not have any roadmap for them except, he needs them to rally behind his 2022 presidential ambition
