It was not the way things were supposed to go. Against all predictions, the people of South Mugirango voted to give Ford-People's Manson Nyamweya a convincing win in Thursday's by-election. The big boys of the campaign -- ODM and PNU -- were left wondering what had hit them.

Just what happened there? It was really quite simple. For starters, the voters were sending out the message that as Kisii they had a political identity of their own which "outsiders" had somehow failed to recognise. For all practical purposes, Ford-People is a "Kisii party" and is seen as such.

The sight of ODM and PNU vote-hunters crisscrossing the constituency in helicopters and high-end vehicles may have created an illusion of grassroots strength. But to the locals, these guys were just "outsiders" with different axes to grind. Mr Nyamweya himself pointedly put it to the ODM and PNU pointmen on the ground that the agenda was very different from what was on the surface in South Mugirango.

That is why, indeed, we could see the absurdity of PNU as well as Kanu's Uhuru Kenyatta and Sam Ongeri, against all party norms, backing the PDP candidate Omingo Magara. And there was the other spectacle of ODM renegade William Ruto rooting for Mr Magara, too. Even President Kibaki at one point dropped in to assist.

PNU chose to hitch its wagons to PDP's Magara, and for all practical purposes, used him to test its local strength against is foremost foe, ODM. PNU, a disorganised collection of often quarrelling parties, has in the past been losing by-elections one after another.

Mr Magara's second-placed showing ahead of the ODM candidate may have come as some consolation that it is making some headway against its rival. But one has to consider that Mr Magara had his own body of committed supporters notwithstanding PNU's unsolicited show of help.

But it is ODM which appears to have emerged with the bloodiest nose. There is a level of (over)confidence in the party leadership as concerns its popularity that tends towards hubris.

That arrogance was very much on display during the South Mugirango campaigning as speaker after speaker kept saying that the seat was "ours". Like their PNU counterparts before them, none of them seemed to have a clue that a by-election dictates a localised approach unlike those overarching "national change" themes beloved of the Orange.

In a sense, PDP can claim the more authentic right to being a "Kisii party" than even Ford-People which struggles to be seen as a "national" outfit.

The PDP has few of those pretentions. The little party is actually peddled mainly in Gusiiland, sometimes by Mr Magara, sometimes by others. But the fact is that it is seen locally as a Trojan Horse for mainly Rift Valley politicians disenchanted with ODM.

There is a core group of Kisii residents who will not forget the 2007 post-election events when many of their kin were evicted from the Rift Valley and saw their property destroyed. The same destruction of Kisii property happened in Kisumu. Some blame the ODM party in general, others specific individuals. They may like Mr Magara, but they don't trust some of his current or former political friends.

The combination of PNU politicians pouring in from all corners to support Mr Magara added to the confusion and strengthened the perception that Mr Magara's campaign bus was being driven and controlled by "outsiders."

The Kisii are no strangers to the phenomenon we have come to know as party-hopping, and which does not seem to induce any shame whatsoever among the politicians. As PNU were busy oiling Mr Magara's creaky campaign machine, Richard Onyoka, the only sitting PDP MP, was busy all over South Mugirango campaigning for the ODM candidate, Ibrahim Ochoi.

The South Mugirango outcome is a frustration for both the main combatants -- ODM and PNU. The next battleground is Matuga, where another test of wills awaits. For ODM and Prime Minister Raila Odinga in particular, the South Mugirango result should be a wake-up call. The assumption of ODM invincibility has been shattered in Gusiiland. Meanwhile, Mr Odinga has all but lost his following in the Kalenjin chunk of the Rift Valley, a fact that awaits to be confirmed by the August 4 referendum.

And even if the other chunks of Rift Valley are by and large with him on the Yes side, they are not necessarily with him in his 2012 presidential ambitions.