People’s Liberation Party (PLP) leader Martha Karua has confirmed claims that the Azimio la Umoja coalition’s agent list during the 2022 presidential election was altered before polling day, lending weight to earlier allegations by Saitabao Ole Kanchory, the late Raila Odinga’s former chief agent.
Karua, speaking during a televised interview on Thursday, January 8, admitted that she received multiple reports from across the country in the final days before the election, indicating that trusted agents had been replaced with unfamiliar names.
“I cannot tell you that I checked exactly what was happening, but I received calls the last two days from many corners of the country from candidates, very angry, saying their list of agents had been trashed,” she recalled.
The Iron Lady, as she is popularly known, explained that the replacements undermined the coalition’s ground network, which relied on trained and loyal agents to protect votes. “For a candidate, agents are key,” she said. “So when you start hearing that Azimio did not have agents in some stations, it means false agents were planted.”
Karua added that Raila Odinga, the Azimio presidential candidate, had entrusted the coordination of election agents to Junet Mohammed. “All I know is that Baba entrusted everything to Junet,” she noted.
The senior counsel also admitted that the coalition never formally investigated the changes after the election, stating, “it is not something that we ever sat down to try and see how not to repeat.”
Karua’s remarks came a day after Saitabao Ole Kanchory claimed that Azimio’s original plan for over 120,000 polling agents, three per polling station, was derailed by internal interference.
According to Ole Kanchory, the original agent list was constantly altered in the weeks leading up to the vote. “Every morning, we had a new list,” he said in an interview with NTV on January 7.
He accused Junet Mohammed, Makau Mutua, and Joe Mucheru of repeatedly changing names, frustrating the deployment of trained personnel, and crippling Azimio’s election-day monitoring.
Karua’s admission corroborates parts of Saitabao Ole Kanchory and Edwin Sifuna’s claims, reigniting debate about whether internal mismanagement played a role in Azimio’s 2022 defeat.
Additionally, the senior counsel stated that this time, she had joined the United Opposition coalition earlier than she had joined Azimio La Umoja in 2022, to prevent a repeat of similar mistakes ahead of the 2027 General Election.
Her revelations have sparked renewed political conversation about accountability within opposition ranks, with many supporters urging a deeper audit of Azimio’s 2022 election strategy.
