Azimio leader Raila Odinga spoke for the first time about the phone call conversation he had with the the President-elect William Ruto hours before the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati announced the results.
Raila admitted that Ruto indeed phoned him to check on him and that they agreed to meet and have a conversation after the election results.
In an interview with BBC News Africa on Monday, August 29, Raila also divulged that their phone conversation was about the outcome of the polls and that they would hold talks later.
“He called me before the results were announced and just greeted me and we said to ourselves at that time, because we didn’t know what was going to come out, that we would meet and talk,” Raila told the BBC's Focus on Africa.
Despite agreeing on having a conversation after the declaration by Chebukati, he stated that the meeting has never taken place.
This even as he stood his ground that the Kenya Kwanza coalition leader did not win the election through a fair, transparent and credible process.
Raila, who vied for the presidency on August 9 for a fifth time, claimed that Ruto was aware that he had not won the polls.
“We’ve not met, neither have we talked since that time because I don’t believe that he is the president-elect. I think that I should be the president-elect. And he knows it, deep in his heart that he did not win these elections, but a beneficiary of electoral fraud,” he said.
After being handed over the presidential election winner's certificate at the National Tallying Centre, Ruto held a joint interview with a number of journalists when he revealed details of the phone call.
"Maybe I should disclose that this morning I called my opponent, Raila Odinga and we agreed regardless of the outcome of the elections, we should have a conversation," Ruto stated.
Ruto stood his grounds that the phone call was about the election outcome but was not going to share power with his political nemesis due to what he witnessed with the outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta.
"In the context of those of us who will be running the executive, I am sure my competitor and his team will take up their role as the opposition, so that we can see how we can move the country," the president-elect affirmed.
