Evelyn joined the ruling party few months to the general elections. She was well received by the party hierarchy; in fact a large welcome party was thrown for her the day she joined them. She was promptly made the woman leader of the party, that's to tie her down and make her feel that she belongs to the inner caucus.
As time goes by, she started showing interest to contest for the Senate. At first observers waves that idea away as a wishful thinking. But the insinuations became stronger that many started seeing Evelyn's posters here and there. That was when the idea became reality for many party faithfuls.
But there have been "loyal" party men who had long been eyeing that sole ticket from Evelyn's constituency even before she joined the ruling party. Those sect of people became disgruntled and even made their discomfort known to the party hierarchy.
One was even bold enough to approach Evelyn with some wrapped hefty envelopes. Evelyn already knew its contents and refused to budge.
"Do not insist on it, he said. Take these as my show of sportsmanship. I do not want you to waste your funds contesting against me in the primaries. We already planned for a consensus candidate and your entrance will mess up the game for me".
Evelyn looked at him, then smiled gently and refused to even touch the envelopes. She told him point blank that it is now the turn of women to fly the party's colours for that particular senatorial seat. The man felt embarrassed by that answer and gesture from Evelyn and like a gentleman he simply gave signs to his hangers-on and they all matched off towards their already waiting SUVs and drove off.
Evenly did not budge. In a fortnight another offer was made from the same aspirant but this time through another intermediary. Evelyn blatantly turned it down. Then few days later she went to the national Secretariat of their party and purchased the expression of interest form for the hotly contested senatorial seat with a mamoth crowd accompanying her for that purpose. It was then that other gladiators also vying for that senatorial seat knew that Evelyn was damn serious with her political ambitions.
