Kenya’s two frontrunners for the August presidential election, William Ruto and Raila Odinga have differed on the preparedness of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
On Wednesday, June 29, the duo and two other presidential contenders, George Wajackoyah and David Waihiga Mwaure met the electoral officials to assess its preparedness.
Despite meeting the IEBC officials to iron out their issues, Raila Odinga expressed displeasure with some of the responses and requested a bilateral consultative session with the commission within seven days.
In a letter by his lawyer Paul Mwangi, Raila is seeking answers on the printing of ballot papers and uploading of the voter register into the KIEMS kits.
Raila, who is seeking the presidency for the fifth and probably last time due to his advancing age, maintained that the electoral body must fly his team to Greece to witness the printing of the presidential ballot papers for accountability and transparency.
While casting doubts on IEBC preparedness, the former Prime Minister raised issues with IEBC chair Wafula Chebulati questioning his silence on a series of letters he has written to him, pointing out gaps in the process of preparing for the August 9th polls.
With less than 35 days to the 2022 General Election, Raila said his major concern is not about the use of manual or automated voters register but to ensure the law is followed.
“What concerns us is not that we insist you don’t use technology, yes use technology, use all the systems that have been described, whether you use them or not, but the law requires that you have them,” Raila said.
Odinga also wants his technical experts to be granted an opportunity to inspect the processes of preparing the KIEMS kits, in conjunction with IEBC’s technical team alongside those of Smartmatic International, the company that was contracted to supply election technology.