‘How Raila lost Presidency in 2022’ – Kanchory
Saitabao Ole Kanchory has revealed how Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition party leader Raila Odinga lost Presidency in the August 2022 polls in a new book.
In the book titled ‘Why Baba is Not The 5th’, Kanchory, who was Raila's chief agent, details incidences of disorganization and infighting that saw Azimio supremo lose elections by around 200,000 votes.
Kanchory claims that Raila won the 2022 polls but gave away the victory in a “tragicomedy” orchestrated through lack of proper strategy and organisation of the campaign team and staff.
“Elections in Kenya are won nor lost; they’re taken. Baba gave it away. He won, yes, but he gave it away. Presidential elections are there for those who are prepared to take it. There has never been an election in Kenya in the last nearly 20 years that has been won, all of them have been taken,” Kanchory told KTN.
He writes that he only had a sit down with Raila and his running mate Martha Karua after William Ruto was declared the President-elect, as they prepared to file the Supreme Court case.
“Not once did Baba and Martha personally join our deliberations whether as national chief agents team, at the command centre or called to inquire the process,” he writes.
Among those he accuses of failing in the Azimio camp include senior government officials whom he accuses of misusing "crazy" resources allocated to the party. He also says there was infighting on who would control the resources at the command centre.
“It is not that the command centre was not given resources but the national chef agents team of five; myself, Oduor Ong’wen, Dr Caroline Karugu, Prof Isaiah wa Kindiki and Paul Mwangi, was kept out of the command centre,” the former chief agent writes.
“The confusion at the command centre had been made worse by endless infighting and internal wrangles within the Azimio family. These turf wars found their way into the sensitive issue of agents, with every Azimio strongman and woman insisting they must be the ones to provide the list of presidential agents,” Mr Kanchory claims.
He says that one of the officials, who was a cabinet secretary during President Uhuru Kenyatta's government, took the opportunity to make money by stealing the resources.
"A visitor to the office of one of the CSs was shocked to see that the CS kept his otherwise-public office under lock and key. When the CS let him into the office, it soon became clear why. This obviously highly trusted guest had to walk on stacks of cash to get to the CS’s desk,” he alleges.
We were sidelined - Kanchory
He claims that several top officials and agents of the party were sidelined days to the elections, leaving the operations of the coalition to a few individuals who controlled everything. Among those he claims were edged out include former PS Karanja Kibicho.
“With Kibicho effectively out of the way and Prof (Makau) Mutua placed in the middle of a dysfunctional entity, (Joe) Mucheru would take centre stage,” Kanchory writes.
He says Prof Mutua became a stumbling block in the operations of the party with "no desire to win the election."
“In the chaos of a crumbling command centre, the Suny Distinguished Professor who had earlier been placed in overall command ended up being a blind, deaf, mute, lame mouse that sees no evil, hears no evil, says no evil and does no evil. One thing I never once saw in Prof Mutua was a burning desire to win the election,” he writes.
Despite most of Azimio top officials, including Raila, claiming that the 2022 elections were bungled, Kanchory believes that the team was flying blind days to the elections due to the "shambolic" command centre.
“There is little doubt the shambolic and deeply compromised Azimio Command Centre is what cost Raila his victory in the 2022 presidential race. The catastrophic collapse of our command centre meant we were now basically flying blind,” he writes.
In the August 9, 2022, General Elections, President Ruto garnered 50.5 per cent of the votes (7,176,141) while his closest rival, Raila Odinga, got 48.8 per cent of the votes (6,942,930).
