Human Rights Activist Boniface Mwangi has shared details of how he believes Azimio lost the presidency in the August 9 general election.
In a lengthy Facebook post, he explained a list of things that went wrong right from campaigns to the end of the elections.
According to him, one of the reasons why they lost the top set is because Azimio was overconfident and grossly underestimated their opponent. He added that their secretariat also let them down.
“We assumed the victory was ours because President Uhuru Kenyatta endorsed and actively campaigned for Raila and Martha. We failed to do the hard work of strategizing, organizing, and mobilizing our base to come out and vote, especially in our strongholds.
“We failed to protect our agents from the temptation of easy bribes from our opponents. We allowed them to be compromised at the polling stations. We also failed to protect our votes because we had too much faith that the IEBC would conduct a credible, free and fair election,” Mwangi explained.
Aside from that he also blamed outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta for the failure. Mwangi said that together with many supporters of Azimio, they doubted him.
“The Azimio secretariat on the other hand, saw him as an asset, not a liability. My view was that if Uhuru could betray Ruto, he could do the same to Raila,” the activist said.
He further noted that Azimio suffered every time Uhuru spoke on their behalf. He said that Uhuru’s gave an impression that he was the one who picked Martha Karua as Raila’s running mate thus leading to her being branded a project as well.
“It was, in fact, Raila who campaigned hard for Azimio to pick Martha as his running mate. Many will recall that her candidature was well received within the country and across the borders,” Mwangi stated.
Another mistake that Uhuru made was to go to Kikuyu radio stations and dictate voters on whom they should vote for in the general elections.
“Had he forgotten that we had endured ten years of hardship, slavery, and looting by the same regime led by him and his deputy, Ruto? Because of Uhuru’s incessant and ill-advised utterances, Raila and Martha struggled to shake off the “projects” tag. Far from being “state projects”, Raila and Martha’s reformist credentials needed no emphasis,” he said.
Uhuru being the chairman of Azimio was also a mistake according to Mwangi.
“His presence in Azimio made Kenyans believe Raila and Martha would be a continuation of Uhuru’s presidency. Uhuru ended up sabotaging what would otherwise have been a very robust campaign,” he noted.
Below is the activists full statement.
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