Mariam steps down from Msambweni race, backs ODM’s Boga

By Mourice Seretta

A candidate in the forthcoming Msambweni by-election has withdrawn from the race.

Sharlet Mariam who was running for the seat as an Independent candidate said she will now support the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Party candidate Omari Boga.

Addressing journalists on Tuesday, Mariam said the move was prompted after a meeting with her supporters who asked her to step aside for Boga so as not to split the constituency.

“I have a political stand and I have direction. It must first be known that I have never been a member of any part apart from ODM. Whatever that happened is like day and night. I will not speak on some matters. All the other things have been propaganda and I did not even write that letter,” Mariam said in an apparent reference to his past dalliance with Deputy President William Ruto.

Mariam made headlines when she ditched ODM and was about to be endorsed by Deputy President William Ruto to run for the seat on a Jubilee Party ticket, a move that was thwarted by Jubilee Party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju who announced that the party was not going to field a candidate during the by-election, but will rather support an ODM candidate.

Despite the move, Ruto went ahead and endorsed Feisal Abdallah Bader, an independent candidate to run for the seat, a move that further infuriated Mariam who in a video expressed her disappointment in Ruto, whom she has accused of double standards.

The Msambweni Constituency by-election IS slated for December 15, 2020.

The seat was left vacant following the death of MP Suleiman Ramadhani Dori who succumbed to cancer in March this year.