It is now official – Kesses Constituency has a new Member of Parliament (MP).
Final results announced on Thursday, August 11, 2022, afternoon, gave UDA candidate CPA Julius Ruto a win of 32,839 votes.
The results were announced by Kesses Constituency IEBC Returning Officer Mathew Chenger.
In the closely followed contest, the current MP Dr Swarup Mishra finished second with 21,404 votes.
Other two candidates in the race garnered below 500 votes in a constituency that saw 54,824 valid votes cast.
The two are Alex Kemboi (406 votes) and Stephen Teigut (195 votes).
And with the official results now out, it means Mishra joins the rest of past MPs who only served for one term.
Since 2013, when Kesses Constituency was created, no legislator has served for two consecutive terms.
The constituency was created from the larger Eldoret South.
Its first MP was David Koros, elected on a United Republican Party (URP) ticket.
But Koros lost to Mishra in 2017, then vying on a Jubilee ticket.
And now Mishra has lost to CPA Ruto.
The tradition of having a one-term MP in the area goes way beyond 2013.
Even in the Eldoret South Constituency, past MPs served only for one term – the last one to be voted for two consecutive terms was Joseph Kiptiony arap Misoi who first served as MP under the one-party system in 1988 and won re-election in 1992 on a KANU ticket.
Past MPs who served for only a single term were Jesse Kibet Maizs (1997), David Kiptanui Koros (2002) and Peris Chepchumba Simam (2002).
