The Presidential Debates Secretariat has announced journalists who will moderate the Presidential Debate between Raila Odinga and William Ruto on Tuesday, July 26.
In a statement dated Thursday, July 21, the first debate will feature George Wajackoyah of Roots Party and David Mwaure of Agano and will be moderated by Smriti Vidyarthi of NTV and Ken Mijungu of KTN News.
The second part of the debate will feature Raila and Ruto will be moderated by Yvonne Okwara of Citizen TV and Eric Latiff of Spice FM and KTN News.
Joe Ageyo of NTV will moderate panel discussions for both debates.
"The moderators have been selected based on a rigorous criteria that abides to among other things the principles of impartiality, fairness and objectivity, a strong understanding of the Kenyan political landscape and the major issues of this election," the secretariat stated.
The segmentation of the interviews follows the popularity of the presidential candidates according to the recent opinion polls.
Wajackoyah and Mwaure had less than five per cent, while Raila and Ruto bypassed the per cent mark.
"We reiterate that under the Presidential Debates Guidelines, the moderators will select the questions to be asked andshall not share the same with the candidates. They will not meet with any of the campaign teams or the candidates," the debate organisers maintained.
Catholic University for Eastern Africa (CUEA) main campus in Karen, Nairobi, has been maintained as the venue for the debate.
Okwara and Ageyo return to the panel after moderating the 2017 Presidential debate. Smriti, and Latiff make their first entry into the debate moderators panel.
The running mates debate was moderated by KTN's Zubeida Koome and his Citizen's TV counterpart Francis Gachuri for the first debate between Agano party's Ruth Mucheru and Roots Party's Justina Wamae.
The second part was moderated by Sophia Wanuna of KTN News and James Smart of NTV, which was between Azimio la Umoja running mate Martha Karua and Rigathi Gachagua of Kenya Kwanza.
