Politics of the hang splits Justina Wamae and Ruth Mutua

Justina Wamae of Roots Party (L) faced off against Agano Party’s Ruth Mutua in the deputy presidential debate at CUEA on July 19, 2022. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

The politics of the hang took centre stage during the deputy presidential debate which saw Agano Party’s Ruth Mutua go head-to-head with Roots Party’s Justina Wamae.

As the moderators, KTN News’ Zubeida Koome and Citizen TV's Francis Gachuri engaged the two, the politics of hanging the corrupt took the centre stage, with the candidates differing on how to deal with the corrupt.

“Our Constitution is a copy and paste,” said Justina Wamae, as she sought to justify her Party’s intention to suspend parts of the Constitution to allow the hanging of the corrupt.

On her part, Agano Party's Ruth Mutua said: “We will go for everyone, even the big fish.”

Mutua says the current administration has leadership problems, and that is why they have been unable to deal with graft.

According to Mutua, should she and Agano Party presidential candidate David Mwaure win the election, they will follow the law to the letter in dealing with the corrupt.

Asked by her competitor, Wamae, why the people behind some of the biggest corruption scandals in Kenya were yet to get punished by the existing laws, Mutua said that her party is yet to take office to deal with them.

“We are going to bring back to Kenya [stolen] money that is stashed abroad,” said Wamae, adding that this will happen in the first 100 days.

She said that Agano Party had already written to the United Nations (UN) and at least 15 countries, where the money had (allegedly) been stashed, to help repatriate the cash to Kenya, claiming the total amount is more than Sh10 trillion.

“We will stop corruption immediately,” she vowed.

Mutua further said her Party will extend a moratorium to those who have stolen State funds, failure of which “the law will take its course”.

Mutua declined to name the people she claims have money hidden in offshore accounts.

On her part, Justina Wamae said should the Roots Party win the presidential election, they will forgive the corrupt and will, instead, use the available avenues to have the money returned to Kenya, and if the avenues fail, they will hang them.