Tetu Constituency in Nyeri County is the only Constituency in Kenya where no incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) has survived a re-election bid.
The electorate has a record of changing their representative in Parliament every election cycle.
Nahashon Kanyi Waithaka of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) Party was the first parliamentary representative of Tetu Constituency in 1988 under the one party system. He only served one term.
He was succeeded by Joseph Gethenji from the Democratic Party in 1992 elections. Paul Gikonyo Muya ran under the same party during the 1997 elections and unseated the incumbent.
He was however defeated by renowned environmental activist, the late Wangari Maathai in the 2002 elections. Wangari took over as the Member of Parliament for Tetu Constituency in 2002 under the NARC coalition.
She even served as assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005.
What’s more impressive was that she became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist, to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Her accolades on the national and the international platform could not protect her from losing the Tetu Parliamentary seat.
She lost the Party of National Unity (PNU) ticket during the nominations and chose to instead run as a candidate of a smaller party.
She was later defeated during the 2007 General Election by Francis Nyammo.
Nyammo, who is the chancellor and proprietor of Inoorero University, beat Wangari Maathai during the PNU nominations and later went on to win the seat.
During the 2013 elections, he was trounced by newcomer Ndungu Gethenje who clinched The National Alliance (TNA) party ticket during the nominations.
After Nyammo was voted out during the nominations, he refused to pay fees for 15 students whom he had been sponsoring. He passed on the responsibility to the MP-elect who beat him.
The youthful Gethenje is also staring at the same fate of incumbents from Tetu Constituency. He was defeated during the recent Jubilee Party primaries by newcomer Mwangi Gichuhi.
Gethenji decided to run as an independent even though Gichuhi stands a high chance of clinching the seat considering Tetu is a Jubilee stronghold.
