MPs from across the political divide came together to voice their anger after local daily the Standard published a front-page splash with the headline 'Traitors' and a large image of the chambers of parliament.
The media house also initiated a social media campaign dubbed #LordsofBetrayal, calling out legislators for failing to take initiative to help Kenyans dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic; further observing the failure of the house to slash their salaries or push for programs to cushion Kenyans from the effects of the economic shocks brought about by the pandemic.
Lawmakers including Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria of Jubilee and Homa Bay Township MP Peter Kaluma of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) responded to the headline, suggesting that the media house could have been compromised to push an agenda against the lawmakers.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria claimed that the earlier cancellation of special sittings of the National Assembly and Senate was not due to the Covid-19 pandemic as officially explained, but part of a plan to ensure MPs offer as little scrutiny as possible of the supplementary budget, predicting plans to hide questionable allocations for Covid-19.
Alluding to the Moi family's stake in Standard Group, Kuria alleged that the paper had been bribed to run the headline.
"First you ensure parliament doesn't meet. Then you bribe Gideon Moi’s media to blame the victims. Then you will bring a suspect budget and hide everything under COVID and if MPs refuse you will say “See, didn't I tell you these wakoras are traitors?” We didn't come with the railway," Kuria wrote on Facebook.
Kaluma, in a series of tweets, described the paper as 'idle' as he accused them of having ulterior motives in running the campaign calling out lawmakers.
"MPs stand with Kenya through policy, legislation and budgeting to direct resources towards combating Covid-19, not through tokenism.
"MPs could not sit earlier to enable Parliament and MOH institute health and safety measures in parliament. Gutter-level headlines not helpful now," he wrote.
Kaluma further thanked a section of Kenyans who agreed with him for seeing through what he termed 'their (Standard's) nonsense.'
Political strategist and former Citizen and Nation journalist Benjamin Wafula spoke to Kenyans.co.ke, voicing concerns about the front-page story which, to him, was misleading.
"You can tell that there is no content in the story. For the past three weeks, there's a lot that has been done by the Senate, for example. There's an ad-hoc committee led by Senator Sakaja looking at several proposals including looking at waiving rents for residential and commercial buildings, providing food for tenants and several other measures to cushion Kenyans.
"Sakaja's committee is presenting its report this week. None of this was highlighted in the story. Parliament also has a sitting this week.
"The agenda of the story was to paint parliament; both the Senate and the National Assembly in totality as non-functional entities," he stated.
Wafula also criticized the seemingly coordinated print and digital campaign, with #LordsofBetrayal among the top trends in Kenya at the time of publication.
"It was definitely misleading. It was sensational and meant to sell the paper. But it also seemed malicious and part of a coordinated propaganda campaign because of the way they even had a dedicated hashtag," he argued.
