Chaos erupted at Jubilee Headquarters in Nakuru County on Monday, March 7, after a disagreement between party officials during a meeting with aspirants.
It was reported that former branch Chairperson David Manyara accused the party officials of carelessness in handling the process, during the meeting convened by the party officials to discuss discrepancies in the registration of aspirants.
Manyara is said to have turned to the party Regional Director Peter Cheruiyot who was addressing the aspirants, descending on him with a number of slaps, sending the official on the ground.
As he official struggled to get back on his feet, Manyara pounced on him again, prompting one of the attendants of the meeting to intervene and save the man.
However, the former branch chair turned his anger on the man and began physically assaulting him. The man was forced to retaliate, and the two exchanged kicks and blows before they had to be separated by the aspirants to save the face of the ruling party.
After pushing and shoving, the situation was contained before the meeting was put off. Moments before the brawl, Manyara, who is eyeing the Nakuru East parliamentary seat, interrupted Cheruiyot, insisting that the Jubilee Secretary-General, Jeremiah Kioni, who recently took over from Raphael Tuju, ought to be involved in settling the dispute.
He also claimed that the branch did not have the requisite officials to carry out the nomination process and that would undermine the independence of the process.
Among other issues raised by the aspirants was that some names were missing on the party's list. They accused the officials of mismanaging the process. Notably, the Nakuru branch Chair James Karimi assured that the concerns raised by the aspirants would be addressed by the party.
While Jubilee stated that it was keen on running a free and fair nomination process, the chaos witnessed in Nakuru could be a tip of the iceberg as the party, which is part of the Azimio la Umoja prepares for the primaries.
The new model would see both Jubilee and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party under the Azimio la Umoja employ the services of a polling agency to determine the most popular candidates in a region.
ODM leader Raila Odinga has previously maintained that they are yet to come up with a formula to prevent fallout during and after nominations. In some cases, Odinga revealed that ODM and Jubilee would do it jointly.
