Kenya Kwanza Alliance presidential candidate William Ruto has alleged that almost 1 million registered voters in his strongholds have been expunged from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) register.
Ruto was speaking at his official Karen residence in Nairobi where he hosted the European Union (EU) ambassadors on Thursday.
During the meeting with the EU ambassadors, he alleged about 800,000 names have gone missing from the IEBC register, which is open for public scrutiny.
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The deputy president said they will take a position on the matter and write to the IEBC over the alleged attempt to remove names from the register.
He also claimed there was a plot by a section of public officials to manipulate the election results.
“It is dangerous, especially when public officials are chest-thumping that the deep state will manipulate the elections,” Ruto said.
Ruto challenged the EU to take up the matter and find out how many names have disappeared from the IEBC register.
“We expect that the EU will try and get as many details from IEBC and the public officials on how a million names disappeared,” Ruto said.
“Many of the names are people from our strongholds. There is a clear attempt to try some monkey games. They will not succeed, but these attempts are a source of concern to Kenyans.”
The DP also appealed to the EU to probe the ways he claimed some people will use to rig the August elections. He alleged there are some individuals in the same government he works for that want to undermine the capacity of the electoral body.
“There are functionaries in government who want to undermine the capacity of the IEBC. They want to go against the free and fair elections and that is unacceptable in Kenya,” Ruto said.
Apart from alleging there are attempts to sabotage the Constitution, Ruto also took issue with some officials in the public service in charge of ICT and the electoral commission who said they are privy to data that enables them to determine the outcome of the election.
Ruto was referring to the Interior PS Karanja Kibicho and ICT CS Joe Mucheru who said they have data collected by the National Intelligence Service and opinion polls which pointed out to Raila Odinga's win
He also wanted the EU and friends of Kenya to look into the matter.
“They say they are in charge of data that will make whichever side win. That undermines the credible elections. We expect friends of Kenya, the EU to speak to issues of credible elections,” the DP said.