NAIROBI, Kenya – A political storm has erupted ahead of the Ol Kalou parliamentary by-election after the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) dismissed claims by the Democratic Congress Party (DCP) that it is plotting to manipulate the vote.
UDA has rejected the allegations as “baseless” and “alarmist,” accusing former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s allies of making serious claims without evidence.
The response followed accusations by DCP, a party associated with Gachagua, that UDA had allegedly designed a ballot-switching scheme involving recruited voters, pre-marked ballot papers and bribery.
DCP claimed a meeting held at a hotel in Gilgil brought together a UDA “think tank” that allegedly planned the operation.
The party further alleged that voters had been recruited as mobilisers, with each expected to bring in 20 voters who would allegedly exchange pre-marked ballots inside polling stations before returning blank ballots to UDA agents for payment.
DCP also claimed, without providing evidence, that ballot papers were being marked at a newly opened hotel in Nakuru and urged its supporters and polling agents to stay alert.
However, in a letter to IEBC chairperson Erastus Ethekon, UDA Secretary General Hassan Omar dismissed the allegations as “delusional and alarming remarks” by Gachagua.
“We have gruelingly read the eight-page epistle… with the mixture of astonishment and pity reserved for a man who mistakes his own shadow for a national conspiracy,” Omar wrote.
UDA accused Gachagua of making claims that Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries were campaigning and bribing voters in Ol Kalou “without a particle of evidence.”
“A dramatic list of Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries allegedly campaigning and bribing in Ol Kalou Constituency has been recklessly referenced, without a particle of evidence,” the letter states.
The ruling party also rejected claims of a secret Gilgil meeting, describing the allegation as another unfounded accusation.
“The jewel in the crown of Gachagua’s imaginative output is the purported secret conclave in Gilgil where every conceivable electoral sin was allegedly plotted with the IEBC’s nodding concurrence,” UDA said.
UDA defended the electoral commission against claims of involvement in election manipulation, saying such allegations were an attack on officials overseeing the poll.
“Panic has gripped Gachagua. He ought to realize that life is not premised on an individual’s hallucinations,” the letter states.
The exchange has intensified political tensions ahead of the Ol Kalou by-election, with both sides accusing each other of undermining the credibility of the electoral process.