Kenya: You Were Not Charged in the Hague for Supporting Odinga, Karua Tells Ruto

26 March 2023
Capital FM (Nairobi)
By Laban Wanambisi

Nairobi — Narc Kenya party leader Martha Karua has told-off President William Ruto on claims that his unwavering support for Raila Odinga in the 2007 elections led him to be charged in The Hague for war crimes.

She was responding to the president's plea at the weekend, that Odinga should be grateful to him for having supported him to an extent of being taken to the International Criminal Court, ICC to face charges.

"Ni wengi walimpigania kinara wetu na hawakupelekwa ICC. Wewe ulipelekwa kwa sababu ya vitendo vyako.Wacha kutaja Baba Raila. (Many people fought for Raila and were not taken to The Hague. You were taken because of your actions)," she said.

Karua who was by then defending the re-election of former President the late Mwai Kibaki under the Party of National Unity (PNU) ticket questioned why other politicians in Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party were not charged.

"I supported former President Mwai Kibaki back then but I wasn't taken to ICC. If I had committed wrongs, I'd have been with him over there," the Narc-Kenya party leader who was Odinga's running mate in the August 2022 elections, added while vowing to press on with protests on Monday called by the Opposition against the high cost of living.

Odinga has launched demonstrations since last week on Monday to force the government to tackle the high cost of living and protest the presidential victory he claims was stolen from him during the August 2022 polls won by President Ruto.

During the 2007 election campaign and the violence that followed, Karua emerged as the leading voice of President Kibaki's supporters. She accused the ODM, the party of opposition presidential candidate Odinga, of "ethnic cleansing" in the aftermath of the elections.

Ruto who was then the ODM Deputy leader maintained the party's stance that the violence after the elections was "spontaneous" sparked by persistent irregularities, accusations of vote-tampering, and the swift swearing-in of President Kibaki in what left more than 1,150 people killed and half million others displaced.

Read the original article on Capital FM.

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