Former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo has passed away.
Jirongo died on Saturday morning, at around 3 am, in an accident along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway.
The 64-year-old died when his car collided with a passenger bus, according to a police report.
Jirongo was a prominent politician whose career spanned decades and whose influence cut across politics, business and public life.
He was born on March 21, 1961, in what was then the Kenya Colony.
He attended Mang’u High School from 1978 to 1981.
In the early 1990s, he gained national attention as the youthful leader of Youth for KANU ’92 (YK ’92), a powerful lobby group that mobilised support for the then-ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) ahead of the landmark 1992 multiparty elections.
At a time when Kenya was adjusting to multiparty politics, Jirongo and his colleagues were seen as dynamic, forceful and closely allied to President Daniel arap Moi’s inner circle.
Jirongo first entered elective politics by winning the Lugari Constituency parliamentary seat in the 1997 elections.
He served as MP from 1997 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2013.
Between 2002 and the end of that year, he was appointed Minister for Rural Development in President Daniel Arap Moi’s administration.
During his political career, Jirongo changed party affiliations several times.
After falling out with KANU around 1999, he was briefly aligned with the unregistered United Democratic Movement before retaining ties to KANU in later contests.
In 2006, he launched his own party, the Kenya African Democratic Development Union (KADDU), through which he reclaimed the Lugari seat in the 2007 elections.
At that time, his party became one of the smallest opposition voices in parliament.
Jirongo also made multiple bids for Kenya’s highest office.
He first expressed interest in the presidency as early as 1998.
In later years, he ran in the 2017 presidential race under the United Democratic Party (UDP), a party he continued to lead.
In the 2017 Kenyan general elections, Jirongo vied for the presidency under the United Democratic Party.
He garnered approximately 11,000 votes, which were 0.07% of the total votes in the elections
On personal matters, he was widely known for having a large family and openly advocated for polygamy, a stance he defended publicly, noting that multiple wives and children were part of his life and identity.
