Deputy President William Ruto has denied claims by Opposition leader Raila Odinga that a luncheon meeting resolved that the parties in the IEBC impasse hold talks.
He said Raila lied about proposals that each party names five people to spearhead conversations on the push to have commissioners hounded out of office.
Ruto said that the Opposition must live by the fact that the stalemate can only be solved constitutionally, a position he said is held by Jubilee.
The DP said it was shameful that he has to tell Kenyans that Raila lied about the said resolutions of the meeting.
Raila on the other hand had moved forward and listed names of five people he wanted to lead the talks.
“There was no agreement made. Our meeting did not even last 10 minutes. How can someone come out and lie that a deal was made?,” the DP said in an interview with Citizen TV on Tuesday.
He said the Opposition was still suffering from the hangover of power sharing and that “If the IEBC commissioners must go, then let due process be followed,”.
“They are suffering the hangovers of nusu mkate. From the Eurobond now it is the IEBC. Why? To achieve the same results,” he said.
Ruto reiterated that Jubilee’s position was that they have to ensure there are laws in place before dismissing commissioners if indeed they are found culpable.
“Before today, MPs from Cord were part of the Justice and Legal affairs committee before they were told to quit. But the moment we say we will not follow the constitution, we are setting this country for failure,” he said.
He said it beat logic why Cord wants to have a private discussion on the IEBC matter with THEM ( not us )outside of that constitution.
The DP likened Cord’s anti IEBC demonstrations to Al Shabaab attacks and that the group was only running away from real issues that should shape the polls.
“We want the election to be about roads, health, schools and so on. But our friends want it centred on changing the constitution to suit them against Kenyans wishes of gaining from state services,” he said.
Ruto said that the weekly protests are no different from what the Al Shabaab is doing and asked the opposition to take charge of their supporters.
He said the confusion was likely to lead the country to a state of anarchy.
“The main aim of the Al Shabaab is to instill fear, destroy property.” Ruto said.
He also said that Cord needs to stop the weekly demonstrations as they are tainting the image of the country.
This, he said, was apart from making business people losing millions of shillings every
Monday as they have to close their shops for fear of them being looted.
“When you look at the newspapers, all you see are pictures of police stations filled with stones, pictures of burning cars and properties destroyed.” Ruto stressed.
“These protests are taking Kenya in the wrong direction and cord leaders ought to be bothered witht eh image they are painting to the world.” Ruto added.
This comes a few hours after Interior CS Joseph Nkaissery issued a directive banning Cord’s planned weekly protests pressing for electoral commission to leave office, despite the High Court allowing the Opposition to hold peaceful countrywide demonstrations.
Nkaissery said the protests have led to loss of lives and destruction of property which cannot be condoned any longer
-the-star.co.k
