logo

Tension as blame game rocks Raila camp over poll loss

Infighting touch on use of massive resources allegedly deployed to facilitate Raila's vote-protection.

image
by JAMES MBAKA

News26 August 2022 - 20:00

In Summary


  • There are claims of failure to post agents at polling stations and disappearance of money meant to pay them.
  • Raila has disputed the presidential results and filed a petition at the Supreme Court to overturn Ruto's victory, citing vote rigging.
Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga, running mate Martha Karua, Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka and other leaders during a church service at JTM Donholm on August 21, 2022.

Direct finger-pointing and behind-the-scenes blame games have rocked Azimio candidate Raila Odinga's camp over the management of his presidential campaigns and election loss.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairperson Wafula Chebukati declared William Ruto president-Elect on August 15.

Raila has disputed the presidential results and filed a petition at the Supreme Court to overturn Ruto's victory, citing vote rigging.

The Star has established that a section of Raila's close confidants are viciously fighting over the handling of the presidential campaigns and the management of the whole election process.

At the centre of the war are accusations and counter accusations that touch on the use of massive resources allegedly deployed to facilitate Raila's vote-protection strategy at the polling stations.

It has emerged that Azimio presidential secretariat could have overlooked the most critical issues, including posting agents to all the 46,229 polling stations across the country to guard Raila's votes.

The net effect was that the presidential candidate failed to have agents in most polling stations, especially in Ruto's strongholds of Rift Valley and Mt Kenya on August 9, exposing his votes.

On Friday city lawyer and Raila staunch ally Donald Kipkorir claimed that the presidential secretariat was a mess, an incompetence which would be laid bare after the Supreme Court verdict.

The lawyer revealed that the secretariat mishandled the poll agents issues, including failing to pay those contracted.

“Raila Odinga was let down & betrayed by people closest to him & those who ran Azimio Secretariat. They lied to him they had everything under control. They lied all agents were in place & paid. Now, they are lying about Supreme Court case instead of working on it to be foolproof," Kipkorir tweeted.

According to sources aware of the issues, the Elizabeth Meyo-led Azimio secretariat was tasked with the overall process of coordinating every activity on the presidential campaigns and election.

Raila's own ODM party was for the first time elbowed from the management of his presidential campaigns as a “small clique of influential people ran the show.”

It was the secretariat that was left with the task of identifying presidential agents and facilitating them at Sh5,000 per person for the two days they worked.

However, until Thursday, the Star established that all the agents hired had not been paid at all with money nowhere to be traced.

Multiple interviews with ODM bigwigs on Friday painted a picture of disillusionment and dejection following what they termed as "Raila's orchestrated fall.”

“The identification of agents were assigned to the Azimio affiliate parties to coordinate there own areas. For example, Jubilee was expected to coordinate Mt Kenya region. Everything was being done by the Azimio Secretariat,” a highly placed source in ODM said. 

According to the official, the move proved fatal for Raila.

“ODM is a party that has been existence for almost five years; we have structures down to almost every village. We had our people even amongst hostile regions that have stood with the party over the years, but we were not found fit to even help in identifying the agents,” he said.

Analysts have insisted that Raila's loss was partly attributed to his failure to have his own agents in polling stations and over-dependence on President Uhuru Kenyatta's state machinery.

The presidential agents are critical in not just protecting the votes at polling stations, but also collecting material evidence and documentation to be used in court in case of a petition.

Speaking on Spice FM, Raila's chief presidential agent  Saitabao Ole Kanchory admitted that Azimio faced what he termed as both "internal and external challenges."

"We tried to micromanage a grand exercise from the headquarters here in Nairobi and it ended up becoming a logistical nightmare in terms of supervision, deployment and payment of agents," he said.

 "We realised that it is difficult to manage that exercise from one central location...We ended up getting letters so late for agents while in others they turned up late."

This week Jubilee secretary general Jeremiah Kioni defended his party agents in Mt Kenya region, saying they were kicked out of polling stations.

“Our agents were denied access to the polling stations until 10am after we had complained to the national office. Any stealing of votes that had been planned already took place by the time our agents were allowed in," he said. 

As part of his evidence in the Supreme Court, Raila has claimed that there was massive vote rigging, alleging that the scheme was widespread in Ruto's strongholds to deny him victory.

Narok Senator-elect Ledama Ole Kina also lifted the lid on the trouble roiling Raila's camp, suggesting that there was a mess that would be fixed later.

“Instead of focusing on the lies can we focus on solutions here…We know what happened let’s fix it! damn it!,” Ole Kina tweeted.

There are also claims that part of the blame for Raila's loss was the lack of a separate tallying centre with proper infrastructure and over reliance on third parties to collect results and tally votes.

Ruto's team is said to have ran an elaborate vote protection strategy that included a parallel system for the transmission of results from all polling stations across the country.

The Kenya Kwanza had a system where agents would upload the pictures of the results declaration forms after announcement by presiding officers at polling stations.

Since Raila's loss, some of his close allies have not been seen in public, including Azimio One Kenya political party secretary general Junet Mohamed and the outgoing Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho.

Junet and Joho who were at the forefront in Raila's campaigns were not present at the Supreme Court during the filing of the petition and has snubbed ongoing campaigns for Mombasa and Kakamega governors seats.

During Raila's campaigns in Mombasa on Wednesday, Joho was missing in action as Raila drummed support for Abdulswamad Nassir.

The Azimio blunder at polling stations, experts say, could have greatly hurt Raila's chances, even as the ODM leader hopes that the Supreme Court would rule in his favour.

In his petition before the apex court, Raila claims that some 217, 631 votes were irregularly awarded to Ruto, saying the theft was orchestrated at the polling stations.

He has given the example of up to 25 polling stations in Tiaty constituency and some in 15 in Nairobi, where the results in forms 34A given to his agents differ from the same forms posted on the IEBC portal.

In all these polling stations, Raila said, the pattern was inflating Ruto's votes.

“WATCH: The latest videos from the Star”

logo© The Star 2024. All rights reserved