Jeremiah Kioni: How UDA used face masks to rig us out in Mt Kenya

Jubilee Party secretary-general Jeremiah Kioni on Wednesday claimed that the August 9 elections in Mt Kenya were rigged with the use of face masks.

Speaking on Inooro TV, Mr Kioni also accused clerics of "being more poisonous than politicians for cohesiveness in the country".

He warned Mt Kenya residents that they "will gravely regret the mistake of selling your political soul to a very ill-informed choice".

Exhibiting raw bitterness, Mr Kioni said that "we have secured intelligence reports that all senior Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) wore face masks that aided them to campaign for the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) candidates inside the voting halls”.

"When you have a face mask on, your lips cannot be seen and the voice is stifled. They influenced the voters to vote us out," he said.

He added that voting in many parts of Mt Kenya happened in the dead of night "like the practice of witchcraft as opposed to the time from 6am to 5pm stipulated by the law".

He also blamed Kenyans’ voting patterns that post close results as the root cause of post-election negative emotions.

The 57-year-old land economist and lawyer said if voters learnt how to tell the difference between the winner and others, it would help discourage losers from going to court.

The IEBC announced the United Democratic Alliance's (UDA) William Ruto as President-elect with 50.5 percent of tallied votes, with Azimio’s Raila Odinga receiving 48.9 percent.

Mr Kioni said that in close results, "splits and dramas like people swearing themselves in as the ‘people's president’ will be recurring".

He said splitting Kenya into two parts in elections started in 1963, when the seed of discord between Mt Kenya and Luo Nyanza was planted and "we have done well to nurse that seed these many years later".

He said 2002 illustrated what could happen when these two regions come together.

"We had a Mwai Kibaki landslide win and there was no court case to challenge the results. When President Uhuru Kenyatta had a handshake with Raila Odinga, peace was won. When those two communities unite for a national cause, history is made," he said.

Mr Kioni said Jubilee will pursue that unity into the future "because we are certain and resolute that the prosperity of this nation lies in the unity of Mt Kenya and Luo Nyanza".

But Mr Kioni's narrative appears to be based on the political science maxim that politics is a game of numbers where you bump up numerical strengths to lock others out.

Mr Kioni said Jubilee "holds it dear in its heart that the eclipse it was handed in the Mt Kenya region by UDA was crooked and we are not remorseful because the majority are not always right".

He said the party and its followers are ready to live with the cost, and "we are after all healing the loss, we will soldier on with our Azimio la Umoja One Kenya alliance gospel because it is the right route for us and our people".

He said it does not matter that "we appear down but we will not relent and we will soldier on despite the grave price we paid of being hounded out of our seats".

Jubilee won only 24 MP seats around the country, with only two in the Mt Kenya region – Kwenya Thuku (Kinangop) and David Kiaraho (Ol Kalou).

It had set a target of more than 70 MPs. It only managed to win one governor, Isiolo’s Abdi Hassan Guyo.

For woman rep seats, Jubilee won in Isiolo and Nyamira counties, while in the Senate races, it posted wins in Garissa, Lamu and Isiolo.

Mr Kioni insisted that no elections were held in Mt Kenya "and we are in office to help our losers launch petitions in the other elective seats not challenged at the Supreme Court".

He said Jubilee has been collecting evidence of electoral fraud in the region.

"We are profiling the IEBC officers who presided over the elections. It employed people from one community and related friends and families. The things that our petitions in the governor, senator, woman rep, parliamentary and MCA seats will expose will shock you," he said.

Without providing any evidence, only saying it will be tabled in the petitions, he said turnout in Mt Kenya was 40 percent and not the over 60 percent on average as claimed by the IEBC.

But he acknowledged that Mt Kenya had shown open contempt for President Kenyatta, Jubilee and leaders associated with the two.

"We were demonised a great deal. The President insisted that we first work and campaign later. We were late in addressing the demonisation,” he said.

“We launched a fightback plan very late. That is how we missed the Uhuru presidency that was never ashamed to expressly favour us in development programmes."