CORD accused of malice over General Election report

Starehe MP Maina Kamanda (left) with  Kamukunji MP Yussuf Hassan at the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa in Mathare, Nairobi Sunday. They criticised a yet to be released dossier by ODM on the results of 2013 general election. [Photo: Collins Kweyu/Standard]

By James Mbaka and Bryan Tumwa

Kenya: Deputy President William Ruto has lashed out at CORD for engaging in a pointless exercise of auditing the bitterly contested 2013 presidential elections.

Ruto said it was sad that the election losers would go back to audit the polls when the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the Supreme Court had conclusively established that the Jubilee alliance won.

“Why do some people want to discuss who won and who lost in the previous elections. We should not engage in a useless debate of who won in 2013 or who will win in 2017. Jubilee will stand firm and work with all Kenyans,” said Ruto.

However CORD leaders led by Funyula MP Paul Otuoma—during the homecoming party of Ikolomani MP Bernard Shinali in Kakamega County Sunday—dismissed Ruto’s remark, saying Jubilee should first put its house in order.

Meanwhile, seven MPs allied to the Jubilee alliance have claimed that CORD was plotting to destabilise the Government through foreign forces.

The MPs said reports that CORD was planning to unleash evidence of how the Jubilee Government stole the last general election could ignite animosity among Kenyans and sabotage President Uhuru Kenyatta-led admininstration.

Maina Kamanda (Starehe), John Njoroge (Kasarani), Mwangi Gakuya (Embakasi North), Benson Kangara (Makadara), George Theuri (Embakasi West), Yusufu Hassan (Kamukunj) and former Mathare MP George Wanjohi accused CORD of planning to incite Kenyans against the Government.

The MPs were reacting to reports in a local daily that the opposition would in a couple of weeks release an earth-shaking audit report on how former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was rigged out of the election.

They pointed out that the yet-to-be released dossier on the March 4, 2013 general election audit, by a foreign audit firm, on request from the opposition coalition, was part of an elaborate scheme to sabotage Government operations.

They urged the opposition to lay behind them the hangovers of their “outright” defeat in the last general election and instead allow the Jubilee Government to serve Kenyans.

“They are planning to ignite the debate about the polls with their obviously false data to undermine the Government,” Kamanda alleged.