Raila denies claims Junet embezzled money for agents

Azimio La Umoja One Kenya alliance Presidential candidate Raila Odinga addresses the media at KICC immediately after filing the election petition. [Kelly Ayodi, Standard] Azimio leader Raila Odinga has said Suna East MP Junet Mohamed did not misappropriate funds meant to pay agents in the elections. Through Makau Mutua, the spokesperson of Raila's presidential campaign secretariat, the Azimio leader yesterday said Junet did not handle funds meant for agents. Junet is Azimio Secretary General. In a statement, Prof Mutua said the MP was not involved in the management of agents, terming claims that the third-term MP had pocketed agents' cash "defamatory." "We have seen shameful and disgusting attacks on some members of our campaign on the question of agents," Mutua saidt. He also defended Elizabeth Meyo, the secretariat's chief executive officer, against claims that she was involved in bungling the recruitment of agents. "Defamatory and obviously false allegations of the misappropriation of campaign funds are flying on social media... those trafficking in such brazen and false propaganda must cease and desist forthwith," Mutua went on. The statement comes amid claims that Azimio did not appoint agents in parts of Rift Valley and Mt Kenya, a matter that the statement did not directly refute. Largely successful "Our view is that the staff did a largely successful job in a challenging environment," Mutua said of a team that handled the recruitment of agents. In a recent interview on Spice FM, Raila's chief agent Saitabao ole Kanchory said competing interests within Azimio saw the coalition party lack agents in some sensitive areas. "The list kept changing because of the interest involved. We would appoint agents in a place and a different candidate comes and says 'these are not my people, I cannot work with these ones. Because of that we ended up having a bit of a difficult situation in terms of just even the identification of who exactly were the agents," said Kanchory. In yesterday's statement, Mutua called for a clean-up of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) which he termed "compromised" and accused it of bungling the presidential election. "Now more than ever, the work of protecting and deepening our democracy must be sustained and heightened. In particular, we must work to clean up and transform institutions that are tasked with safeguarding our democracy. We will be saying more about this in the near future," he said. But he added that the issue of agents was not the cause of a bungled election since it was the duty of the IEBC and not candidates to protect the vote, or conduct a free and fair election.

Raila denies claims Junet embezzled money for agents

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