Azimio to pray for electoral justice – Raila

Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga testerday announced that the coalition will hold a prayer rally outside the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) offices in the quest for electoral justice.

He at the same time announced a new Senate House leadership following President William Ruto’s camaraderie with some of Azimio lawmakers, including  those of the  Jubilee Party.

“We must defend electoral justice in our country. We will continue to urge Kenyans to defend their rights. We will also be doing a prayer for the IEBC that we have an electoral agency, which will defend the right of our people. We will be in front of the premises of IEBC,” said Raila.

After a luncheon with Azimio Senators yesterday, Raila maintained that the August 2022 polls were affected by massive irregularities, adding that his coalition  will not allow an act of electoral fraud to be swept under the carpet.

“The elections were rigged no matter how many times Ruto shouts and no matter how many times he prays. Prayer is not going to help him get away with theft of elections. Kenyans must defend electoral justice,” he said.

The former Prime Minister said Kenyans fought for a long time to restore multipartism and they will not allow the gains to be rolled back.

He said that during the days of one party dictatorship, elections were manipulated.

Raila said that the Supreme Court denied them the opportunity to access the IEBC servers during the hearing of the presidential election petition, thus denying them crucial evidence in the case.

“Our people have raised issues like why we did not raise these issues at the Supreme Court. The same Supreme Court denied us access to the server. When we took our case to court, we asked the court to direct IEBC to give us access to the server.

“The service provider, the company called Smartmatic, refused to allow us and even wrote a letter, which the media has, saying they cannot allow us access the server because that will infringe their property rights.”

According to Raila, they hired experts who exposed the information contained in the IEBC server.

“If they want Kenya to be led by a minority, fine. But that decision should be left to Kenyans. Do we wish to put these things under the carpet? Somebody got 5.9 million votes while another got 8.1 million votes. Those are the facts which must not be swept under the carpet.”

Whistleblower

According a whistleblower who Azimio claims is an IEBC insider, Form 34B results for 46 constituencies were never transmitted between August 9 and 27, 2022.

“The result forms available have no metadata to confirm where they came from. At the same time, a total of 3,986 forms 34A were never received at the National Tallying Centre between August 9th and 29th August 2022. Some constituencies transmitted more than two result forms with different figures (this is where Forms 34A of Book 2 were used),” the whistleblower claims.

In the changes effected by the Senators to the House leadership, Senator Stewart Madzayo (Kilifi) has retained his  position as the Senate Minority Leader and will be deputised by Kitui lawmaker Enock Wambua.

The 14 Senators who attended the luncheon axed Fatuma Dullo (Isiolo) from the Minority Whip position and picked Ledama Ole Kina (Narok) as the new Whip. He will be deputised Edwin Sifuna (Nairobi).

Senators Oburu Oginga (Siaya), Mohamed Faki (Mombasa), Juma Boy (Kwale), Eddy Oketch (Migori), Stewart Madzayo (Kilifi), Ole Kina (Narok), Sifuna (Nairobi), Agnes Kavindu (Machakos) and Johnes Mwaruma (Taita Taveta) attended the meeting.

Others were nominated Hezena Lemaletian, Elizabeth Oyomo, Catherine Mumma, Betty Montet and Christal Asige.

Notable absentees were Enock Wambua (Kitui), Godfrey Osotsi (Vihiga), Dan Maanzo (Makueni), Tom Ojienda (Kisumu), Moses Kajwang’ (Homa Bay), Okong’o Omogeni (Nyamira) and Richard Onyonka (Kisii).

Jubilee Senators Dullo, Abdul Haji (Garissa), Josepth Githuku (Lamu) and Margaret Kamar (Nominated) did not attend the Senate luncheon.

“We are united as a team. We have effected the changes and now have a new leadership in place. It was a good meeting. We briefed Raila on the activities of the House,” said Madzayo.

While announcing the new leadership, Raila said some officials had opted to work with the government.

“We want to be very focused. Azimio stands for the defence of the people of Kenya; to articulate issues affecting our people,” he said.