Wiper Patriotic Front leader and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has hinted at plans to pursue private prosecution against the top leadership of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
Speaking on Tuesday in Ithanga, Murang’a, where he joined the family of the late Herbert Kariithi Macharia, Kalonzo revealed that the United Opposition was preparing to privately prosecute IEBC Chairperson Erastus Ethekon and CEO Hussein Marjan over alleged electoral irregularities.
According to the veteran politician, there were instances of state interference in the recently concluded byelections, where he alleged that the government colluded with the electoral management body to influence the outcomes of the polls.
''How would the chairperson clear someone whose name is not even known? They do not know until now the name of the man who won in Mbeere. He announced his name only to turn up to be elected and declared the winner. The IEBC chair is culpable; you do not clear a fellow like that, that is fraud,'' Kalonzo said.
Kalonzo further claimed that in Mbeere, the United Democratic Alliance candidate Leo Wamuthende, who was declared the winner, had a questionable identity, arguing that he had at one point denounced his own name.
He added that despite objections raised earlier, the electoral commission still proceeded to clear the candidate and later announced him the victor.
On why the United Opposition was considering private prosecution, Kalonzo said the current IEBC, as constituted, was largely a creation and composition of President Ruto’s loyalists.
According to Kalonzo, should the private prosecution sail through, the outcomes would put a permanent injunction on what he described as a culture rooted in impunity.
''We want to assure Kenyans that there will be no interference with the upcoming 2027 polls. We will now target the chairperson of IEBC as we know it is a Ruto commission. We are telling them that we will go for private prosecution because what happened in Mbeere and Malava was all criminal,'' Kalonzo added.
''We will go for private prosecution because we know Ruto cannot prosecute Ethekon and the CEO Marjan. All that is going on there will put an end and a permanent seal on them.''
At the same time, the opposition figure dismissed claims that the United Opposition outfit was divided as well as tribal based maintaining that such sentiments were a making of the state.
Meanwhile, his opposition counterpart Rigathi Gachagua, speaking at the same event, alleged that the government had deployed an all-round spy team to monitor his movements, with the intention of spreading propaganda about his political positions and causing divisions within the Mt Kenya region.
