Limuru constituency will provide some riveting battles at both the nomination stage and the elections proper. 

Serial party-hopper George Nyanja has moved to the Democraic Party and will be defending his seat on the National Rainbow Coalition ticket (NARC). 

But a Kanu re-energised in Kiambu District with the presidential campaign of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta is coming on strong. I fierce battle can be expected for the Kanu ticket in Limuru with the entry of Mr Nyanja's arch-rival and fellow party-hopper Kuria Kanyingi.

The two faced of in 1992 and 1997, but this time Mr Kanyingi will have a fight on his hands to secure the Kanu ticket. After moving from Kanu to Safina to Ford Asili and to the Democratic Party, he moves back to the ruling party.

Despite the highly-publicised re-defection last week, Mr Kanyingi will find that Kanu hierarchy in Limuru has changed a lot. For one, he will have to contend with the head-start for the nomination enjoyed by former Kenya Airways pilot John Chege Gitau and his former key campaigner, lawyer Stanley Mukuria Nguturi.

Both are formidable candidates, but Capt Gitau appears to have an edge because of his relationships with key Kanu power-brokers. His friends make much of the fact that he has piloted President on numerous occasions and his friendship with figures as key presidential aide Hoseah Kiplagat. He also has close links to Uhuru Kenyatta.

But such relationships can count for nothing in a situation where an intimate local knowledge and the ability to play down and dirty counts. It might well be a close tussle between Capt Gitau, Mr Kanyingi, Mr Nguturi and a farmer-cum businessman David Githumbi Thande, son of former politician late Peter Thande.

On the opposition side is Mr Nyanja and a former Barclays Bank manager Joseph Kimani Munyaka. Other likely contenders for the NARC ticket include youthful University of Nairobi computer science graduate, Mburu Waiganjo and Mr Kinyanjui Njenga.

Another prominent opposition candidates will be Social Democratic Party Secretary General Apollo Njonjo, a veteran of local politics who has however never made much of an impression despite his national image. 

There will also be perennial loser Joram Kariuki of the Kenya National Democratic Alliance (KENDA), who has faithfully contested the seat since 1969. 

A match-up between the two enemies, Mr Nyanja and Mr Kanyingi, would make for a brutal, no-holds-barred battle. Mr Nyanja was elected on the Ford Asili ticket in 1992. In 1997 he moved within a month to DP, Safina and the Social Democratic Party before finally settling on the NDP. 

The rivalry between the two is so great that Mr Nyanja said at a recent harambee for Tigoni Hospital that he would rather lose the seat to any candidate but Mr Kanyingi.

The MP said the fact that in 1997 he was elected on an unpopular party in Central Province – the defunct National Development Party – demonstrated the confidence people had in him.

"I stood on an unpopular party despite having jumped from one party to another. The people had said they would elect me so long I was not in Kanu. This is because they know what I have done for them," he says.

But the voters also this time have more than the opposition to chose from.