August 9

Arrest of election technology officials was a plan to postpone August polls – Ruto

Saturday, July 23rd, 2022 05:49 | By
Ruto
Deputy President William Ruto. PHOTO/DPPS

Deputy President William Ruto has sensationally claimed that the arrest of three employees of Smartmatic International B.V, the company procured by IEBC, to facilitate election technology in the upcoming elections, was a choreographed plan by the Azimio brigade to influence the postponement of elections.

Addressing rallies in Kilifi and Mombasa on his day three tour of the Coast, the Kenya Kwanza presidential flag bearer claimed that the Azimio camp has sensed defeat after realizing very late that they are practically short of numbers, and are now burning the midnight oil hatching schemes to ensure the polls are rescheduled.

“These people have got no agenda or plan and that is why in their campaigns, the Kitendawili man will always tell you irrelevant slogans like Tibim and Tialala. Nowadays he has invented a new one that goes vijana fire! And because they lack a meaningful agenda, they have tried all their plans but they have noticed very late that their support is fading. This is why they are planning everything to ensure elections are postponed,” Ruto told supporters at Old Town: “If you see them arresting innocent election officials, it means that they are not ready for elections and they are either planning to have it postponed or preparing to reject the results.”

He said that the Azimio camp has shown clear signs that they were never prepared for the August 9, showdown.

Ruto
UDA party leader William Ruto at a past forum. PHOTO/Courtesy

According to Ruto, Raila’s stand insisting on the use of manual register, coupled with Thursday’s arrest of election technology officials is the clearest indicator that Azimio is laying the ground for either postponement of elections or to reject the outcome of the August 9, exercise.

However, he asked his supporter not to be destructed by the sideshows and instead prepare to “send the Azimio team home.”

Once again, the Port agenda which has continued to dominate debates as the campaigns in the build-up to August 9, heats up was revisited, with the Deputy President insisting that ideas and plans of Standard Gauge Railway were hijacked by leaders with selfish interests and greed, who transferred Port operations to Naivasha and the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Nairobi.

With 17 days to the general election, Ruto ended his three-day tour of all the six counties of Coast on Friday, this being his 22 visits to the region.

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