After a political miscalculation that saw him miss a chance to become Mombasa governor businessman Suleiman Shahbal is now back to the drawing board.
Towards the August general elections, Shahbal shocked many when he abruptly pulled out of the Mombasa governor race in favour of now Governor Abdulswamad Nassir with whom they were competing for the ODM party ticket.
The businessman was at the time rated as a frontrunner as rebellion against Governor Hassan Joho had spread to his preferred successor Nassir.
Shahbal’s political advisers of aware that he had made serious political inroads but was likely to be denied ODM ticket due to Joho influence in the party had advised that he considers to run as an i n d e p e n d e n t candidate.
Hassan Joho
Surprisingly however in the midst of the hot campaigns, Shahbal left for Nairobi and the next thing his supporters including his running mate heard was that he had stepped from the race. He then switched off his phones.
His heartbroken supporters afterwards rejected an attempt to herd them to the Nassir political camp. Instead, they scattered to different political formations and majority of them ended up in former Nairobi governor Mike Sonko’s camp when he announced his bid for Mombasa governor only to later be stopped by the Supreme Court.
Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko
And when Sonko realised that then powers that be could not let him be on the ballot for fear he would whitewash Nassir, he “donated’ his supporters to UDA’s Hassan Omar but by then voter apathy had already set in and not many of them turned out to vote after the governor poll was postponed from August 9 general election day.
Observers say, had Shahbal held on and listened to the voices of the people he would have easily won the governor seat on whatever ticket.
Perhaps for now the only relief Shahbal has is that his controversial multi billionshillings Buxton housing project would go on uninterrupted.
Ex-senator Omar had vowed to halt the project if he became governor, saying the project was illconceived and the tender was single sourced without justification.
Hassan Omar
Nassir too while Mvita MP was opposed to the housing project, accusing the county administration of having given away public land worth billions of shillings to a private developer for free without following legal procedures.
Nassir will now have to go slow on the matter after Shahbal sacrificed for him, politically.
When a senate committee directed the Mombasa County government to supply it with tender documents including minutes of meetings that preceded the award to Shahbal’s firm, there were none.
