Former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, has written to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) over Deputy President William Ruto's letter seeking to have government officials prosecuted for engaging in politics.
Through his lawyer, Paul Mwangi, Raila argues that the Interior Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang'i, and his ICT counterpart, Joe Mucheru, were being targeted unfairly by the Kenya Kwanza faction.
Raila stated that the Cabinet Secretaries were free to participate in the campaigns citing the Supreme Court ruling in the 2017 presidential petition.
"United Democratic Alliance (UDA) knows very well that the exemption of CSs and CECs is anchored in law. Failure to mention the same is a deliberate attempt to pill the wool over you," read Raila's letter in part.
The letter by Raila and his team comes weeks after Ruto wrote to the IEBC and Director of Public Prosecution, Noordin Haji, seeking to have the five CSs prosecuted for abusing their office.
Ruto argued that the engagement of the government officials in politics was a concern to them, alleging that there were plans to interfere with the integrity of the polls.
Other top government officials who had been targeted by the Ruto's team include Environment CS Keriako Tobiko, Defense CS Eugene Wamalwa, Transport CS James Macharia, and Interior Principal Secretary, Karanja Kibicho.
“In light of the foregoing, we write this protest letter to bring to your attention as the body mandated to conduct elections the remarks by the Cabinet Secretary for ICT and request that you look into the matter and guarantee all parties and Kenyans free and fair elections come August this year,” UDA protested in a letter.
However, some of the CSs have defended their stand to campaign for the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya presidential candidate stating that the letter was a tactic being used by the DP as he would lose in the polls.
Mucheru wondered why the DP did not raise any alarm in 2017 yet they were on the campaign trail together drumming up support for President Uhuru Kenyatta.
"Let me be clear, we do not get involved in running the elections. People are saying that Mucheru has access to servers and can decide who is voting or going where.
"The servers are managed and run by the IEBC. We had a joint team that was looking into election preparedness and IEBC stated that they would do that themselves and they did not want us to get involved," he stated.
