Jubilee Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni on Wednesday, August 24, detailed ways the party believes were used to manipulate the outcome of elections in the Mt Kenya region.
While addressing the press at Jubilee Party Headquarters, Kioni argued that Jubilee Party agents and those of Azimio leader Raila Odinga were denied access to the polling stations.
He claimed that they were chased away after being accused of not having identification letters bearing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) stamp.
"All our agents were denied access to the polling stations at the time when others were allowed in. The earliest most of the agents got in was allowed in was around 10. One reason was give to all of them 'Your letter of appointment is not stamped.' Even Azimio agents," he stated.
He also argued that IEBC had manipulated the voter turn out to over 55 per cent but the party believes the turnout in the region was at 40 per cent.
He added that some of the voters were forced to take photos of their ballot papers during the voting process to present evidence that they voted for the most preferred candidates for a payout later.
Kioni, who lost his Ndaragwa parliamentary seat, further insinuated that there was a sudden increase in voters who needed assistance and read mischief in the manner they were helped.
"It is within our region that we now got a new phenomenon of people going into the polling stations and taking photographs of their polling papers. Why were the voters taking pictures of the ballot papers: It is because there was a salaries that was to be given to those voters
"All over sudden, Mt Kenya had a lot of voters that needed to be assisted. The illiteracy level just shot up in 2022. Our agents were stuck at one corner and the presiding officer were with the assisted voters," he added.
Kioni further accused IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati of duping individuals interested in applying for the Returning Officers (ROs) and deputy ROs position by using a pre-determined outcome method.
He argued that the commission gazetted the shortlisted candidates in April, more than a week before the application window was scheduled to close.
"The polls that had been made by many agencies, including the commercial ones were accurate and truthful... The deadline of applications of ROs and deputy ROs was May 5, 2022. The gazettement was done by Chebukati of those who had applied by April 28, 2022. So he has already gazetted the people he wants to recruit but he continues inviting applications to May 5.
"We worked with the May 5 deadline, what this did to our side was that the people we were having to apply and possibly recruited were locked out. We were duped because he gazetted more than a week earlier of the people he wanted to recruit. A pre-determined outcome was what the IEBC was working with," he explained.
He, however, explained that the party's efforts to expose the rigging scheme were thwarted by the sudden death of the Embakasi Returning Officer - an incident he says scared other ROs from stepping forward to present evidence.
Initially, Kioni had explained that there was rigging in 33 Constituencies in Mt Kenya region maintaining that no yellow wave was witnessed in the region.
