KAIKAI KICKER: Take DP Ruto rigging claims seriously, he has seen both sides of the election coin

On my kicker tonight, I persuade that the election fears being expressed by Deputy President William Ruto must be taken seriously. And seriously they must for one simple reason; the man has seen and knows, rather authoritatively, both sides of Kenya’s mysterious election coin.

A short four-plus years ago, the deputy president was the ultimate lion of the Jubilee administration – roaring in fearsome totality in defence of a presidential election that had been nullified by the Supreme Court. The court had ruled that the reelection of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate Ruto had failed the test of verifiability and the result was therefore null and void.

An angry deputy president chided the Supreme Court for nullifying the election and for placing a premium on the process of the election rather than what he felt was the clear outcome of the election.

That was 2017. Ten years before that; that is in 2007, Ruto had a different story to tell. I was present in that room, reporting the news as Ruto staged a compelling defence of electoral integrity in an election tallying process that had all the similarities of the 2017 election.

In 2007, Ruto was the star illustrator of what was going wrong with the transmission and announcement of election results. He eloquently picked out inconsistencies and in a twist of irony, Ruto in 2007 became the first person to ask the electoral commission to explain where it was getting getting the numbers it was releasing as election results.

Ten years later in 2017, the Supreme Court, just like Ruto in 2007, asked the IEBC to explain the source and transmission of numbers used to declare an election winner. Two elections, same questions, same trends, different outcomes. Of course, there was that little negligible detail that Ruto liked the outcome in 2017 but disliked the outcome in 2007.

Fifteen years and three elections in between, I persuade again that the claims made by DP Ruto about rigging of elections must be taken seriously. As illustrated, he has witnessed and experienced both worlds and would certainly know what he is talking about. And just for the record, this kicker consistently champions integrity of elections and as it previously stated, elections must be managed from Anniversary Towers, and not Harambee House.

That is my kicker.