Raila ignored warnings from international community on IEBC fraud
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Raila ignored warnings from international community on IEBC fraud during the 2022 general elections
Raila ignored warnings from international community on IEBC fraud during the 2022 general elections.
Azimio leader Raila Odinga reportedly became dismissive of concerns about possible electoral fraud in the August 2022 polls.
His chief agent in the polls, Mr Saitabao Ole Kanchory claims in his tell-all book titled “Why Baba is not the 5th” that Raila was allegedly made comfortable with assurances of a win because the State machinery would ensure his victory was not snatched.
In the book, Mr. Kanchory describes how Mr. Odinga was persuaded to forget his previous “painful experience” with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), as he believed that the commission’s chairman, Mr. Wafula Chebukati, would need the approval of the other six commissioners before announcing the winner of the presidential election.
The hiring of four of the seven IEBC commissioners—vice chair Juliana Cherera, commissioners Francis Wanderi, Irene Masit, and Justus Nyang’aya—during the era of the infamous March 8 “Handshake” may have given Mr. Odinga the impression that he got along well with the new team.
Mr Kanchory reveals how his attempts to flag out alleged irregularities around IEBC operations were dismissed by Mr Odinga and some of his close allies.
“Even with his painful experience with stolen elections and the clear tell-tale signs and warnings on IEBC, Raila Odinga could not see how the election could possibly be stolen from him this time round. Apparently, someone had convinced the former Prime Minister that he had nothing to fear as far as the IEBC chairman Mr Wafula Chebukati was concerned,” Mr Kanchory says.
And in what lends a lot of credence to part of the coalition’s grounds to its presidential petition at the Supreme Court, Mr Kanchory says, Mr Odinga believed the outcome would only be valid if backed by a majority of the seven commissioners.
“According to the information that Baba had been given, all decisions of IEBC, including the final outcome of the presidential, had to be subjected to a plenary of all the seven commissioners. Despite his constitutional mandate as the National Returning Officer, the chairman of IEBC could not act unilaterally in announcing the winner of the presidential contest,” the book states.
On July 10, barely a month to the polls, Mr Kanchory says that Ms Ngilu and himself arranged for a meeting with Mr Odinga at Serena Hotel over alleged skewed “deployment of partisan returning officers and plans to use defective Kenya Integrated Election Management System (Kiems) to suppress voter turnout in Opposition strongholds.
“After the Serena meeting with Baba [Mr Odinga], Junet pulled me aside and told me ‘wewe Kanchory wacha wasi wasi. Nauwache hii kelele mingi…Chebukati hapana mtu mbaya’,” he narrates in the book.
He claims that some of the poll rigging loopholes allegedly created by the electoral body were flagged out by an unnamed foreign mission.
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This assertion effectively casts doubt on the coalition’s sustained narrative that the international community sided with President William Ruto in the run-up to the August 9 polls.
“Strangely enough, some of the warnings on IEBC that Baba ignored reportedly came from highly placed sources at some of the foreign missions. That is why it is hard to believe that there was a general conspiracy against Baba [within] the international community,” the book states.
Mr Kanchory further states that Mr Odinga could have lost for “dismissing and disregarding all the intelligence that was shared with him”.
He describes President Ruto as a keen listener, who is ready to reach out. He says this attribute could have worked wonders for Dr Ruto even among the poll officials and at the Supreme Court, which upheld his election.
“Baba’s dismissiveness and his innate inability to reach out is definitely a handicap. This is another area where William [President Ruto] pulls a fast one on Raila Odinga.
Reaching out is a sign of respect and recognition, which is something everyone desires, and the person who reaches out more will generally get more out of people. This soft spot power could very well have made a difference in a number of areas, including IEBC and even the Supreme Court,” he says.
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