WATCH: Mariga struggles to answer questions from journalists
McDonald Mariga appears to be encountering challenges in his bid to transition from a star footballer to a politician.
On Sunday, the former Harambee Stars player appeared to struggle to respond to questions from journalists while on the campaign trail.
Mariga had organised a football tournament involving the local teams and took that opportunity to push for his sports agenda in the event he is elected to office to succeed the late Ken Okoth on November 7.
It took the intervention of Langata lawmaker Nixon Korir to help the former Inter Milan midfielder to respond to a question from NTV journalist Seth Olale on live TV.
Seth Olale: Mariga, it is just three weeks to the by-election, so far, in terms of your strategy, is it working for you? And in terms of some of the issues raised by your campaign team in terms of security, have they been addressed? And so far how is the ground in Kibra?
Mariga (responds in Swahili): Ground iko poa but today ilikuwa mambo ya sports sitaki kuongelea mambo mingi. Nataka tulaunch sports Kibra, na tu-nurture talents. (The ground is okay, but we are focusing on sports today, my aim is to nurture talent).
At this point Koriri interjects and continues answering the question, despite indications from the journalists present that Mariga should field the questions.
Korir: Generally, we are doing well… you know where the violence is coming from. We are not a violent group. You can see right now all the players that are playing today are from different political parties but we’ve been unified today by football.
ODM’s Bernard ‘Imran’ Okoth, Eluid Owalo of ANC and Khamisi Butichi of Ford-Kenya alongside Mariga considered front runners in the Kibra race which has attracted a total of 26 contestants.