Raila Odinga, the leader of the Azimio la Umoja coalition party, has condemned the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati as a “criminal who should be prosecuted and sentenced to jail” for his role in the August General Election.
Mr. Odinga, who campaigned for president but lost to William Ruto, accused Chebukati of perpetrating a “crime against humanity” in an exclusive interview with Citizen TV, despite the fact that the IEBC chief just called the August polls the greatest he has ever presided over.
Chebukati stated on Saturday that he had no regrets about leaving office after six years as head of the electoral commission, and that he is happy of “strengthening” the agency.
Mr. Odinga responded by dismissing Chebukati as a person of “poor standards” who oversaw alleged vote manipulation at the commission’s tallying centers.
Three of the four have subsequently resigned from the commission, leaving Masit as the sole remaining member, who is now being investigated by a tribunal formed by President Ruto after petitions were filed questioning their fitness to hold office.
While the four argued that the findings announced on August 15, 2022 were “opaque,” Commissioners Boya Molu and Abdi Guliye backed Chebukati and have all lined up to testify against Masit before the tribunal.
Mr. Odinga maintains that his presidential campaign and the August polls were well-run, except for vote-rigging, which he claims was endemic at the tallying center.
He accused Chebukati of splintering the electoral body by “seeing himself as the Returning Officer of the presidential election and reporting results that he himself knows where they came from.”
The Supreme Court dismissed Mr. Odinga’s appeal challenging the findings, describing some of the evidence given by his lawyers as “hot air.”
“It is a tragedy of justice,” Mr. Odinga added, “and it was an even bigger tragedy when the Supreme Court validated that brazen form of election cheating.”
The ODM leader also addressed allegations that he lost because he supposedly listened to only three people in his team: Suna East MP Junet Mohamed, former ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru, and his campaign secretariat spokeswoman Makau Mutua.
Mr. Odinga dismissed the claim as “total nonsense,” noting that such matters are within the purview of his chief agent, Saitabao Kanchory, who raised the subject in an interview last week.
“His role was at the Kenyan Bomas, not the campaigns or the agents,” he explained.
Mr. Odinga insisted that it was the IEBC’s responsibility, not his agents’, to prevent election manipulation.
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