As the August 8 general election draws near, tensions are flaring and the war of words between the leader of the main opposition, National Super Alliance, Raila Odinga, and the incumbent, President Uhuru Kenyatta is also escalating.
Odinga, who has been termed a 'perennial opposition presidential candidate' for his failed bids to become president since 1997, is trying by all means necessary to dethrone Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also hell-bent on avoiding the tag of being Kenya's first one-term president.
Due to the post-2017 presidential "succession plan", neither Odinga or Kenyatta is expected to be on the ballot in 2022. Neither candidate has held back in their campaigning for the highest seat in the land, making what some would say are wild accusations against each other.
What did they say?
Odinga said:
1. Government ignored warning signs from various experts about a looming maize shortage in order to create a national crisis and enable cartels to profit from the situation.
2. Kenyatta is planning to reject the election results because he knows he will lose. He has also claimed that the government had assembled a security team to rig the elections.
3. The president and his deputy have resorted to intimidating independent institutions like the Judiciary, as campaigns tighten and things swing out of their control.
4. Kenyatta's Jubilee administration's manifesto is made of lies.
5. The Jubilee administration is guilty of killing the country's economy.
6. Kenyatta is spying on him by tapping his phone, which according to him, in a report in TUKO , explains why Kenyatta knows whatever he is planning.
7. Jubilee candidates and leaders are the lords of corruption, and Odinga has promised to sweep away traces of corruption in the public sector if elected president.
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Both Kenyatta and Odinga have accused each other of instigating inter-ethnic conflict, for which Kenyatta and Ruto were charged by the International Criminal Court before both cases were dropped for insufficient evidence. A former International Criminal Court prosecutor said he did not have any evidence against Odinga.
Kenyatta said:
1. Odinga sabotaged his government through what he called "a local and international campaign of lies and deceit."
2. The opposition leader peddled falsehoods against his government by associating mega projects with corruption.
3. Odinga copied his plan to implement free secondary education in 2018.
4. That the National Super Alliance is being funded by international corruption cartels.
5. Odinga seeks to stoke ethnic tensions ahead of the general elections through his claims that the diversion of water from the highlands will result in drought.
6. The State House has urged the opposition to declare if they will concede defeat should they lose in the August 8 General Election - this was in response to statements by Odinga that Jubilee Party was planning to reject the election results "after sensing defeat".
7. Odinga is bad for the economy because when he joined the coalition government in 2008, the economy contracted.
