Raila Odinga, NASA presidential candidate has accused the President of using public resources to spearhead his re-election bid.
Speaking on Tuesday during the National Elections Conference held at KICC, Raila accused UhuRuto of using tax payers’ money to campaign and the IEBC for turning a blind eye.
“We have seen a worrying inability by the IEBC to enforce the Electoral Code of Conduct. We have seen the government using its record in office and public funded projects as campaign tools for Nairobi. We have seen cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries, who are paid by taxpayers, deployed to campaign for the Jubilee Party,” said Raila.
According to the former premier, state organisations are also contributing funds to Jubilee’s campaign kitty.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has also accused the President the same.
At the same time, the Law Society of Kenya has protested the conduct of two public officials who participated in Uhuru’s dinner on Friday last week and were introduced as ‘members of a technical committee’ of a pro-Uhuru lobby group.
The rights body said Uhuru is violating the law by dishing out goodies to certain areas, weeks to the general election. This amounts to voter bribery.
Voter inducement is an election malpractice under Section 10 of the Elections Offences Act 2016.
KNCHR chairperson Kagwiria Mbogori said the government is out to amend sections of the Elections Offenses Acts, which bars the government from advertisement its achievements during an election period.
In the recent months, there has been increased paid up adverts of the Jubilee administration’s achievements in both print and electronic media.
“Those actions of the government amounts to abuse of office and thus Kenyans must call for transparency and accountability of the public officers who unlawfully disregard legal provisions aimed at safeguarding free and fair elections,” Mbogori said in a statement to newsrooms.
Mbogori also accused Governors Evans Kidero (Nairobi), Kenneth Lusaka (Bungoma) and Simon Kachapin (West Pokot) of abusing their powers to limit their opponents’ use of public grounds for campaigns.