Only two presidential candidates will participating in the much anticipated presidential debate that will be held at Catholic University this evening.
Kenya Kwanza’s candidate William Ruto and that of Agano, David Mwaure Waihiga are the only ones who have not announced their withdrawal from the much anticipated debate.
Azimio leader Raila Odinga and his Roots party counterpart George Wajackoya pulled out of the debate for a number of reasons.
While Raila announced his intentions during the weekend, Wajackoya made his announcement, through his party spokesperson Wilson Muirani alias Jaymo Ule Musee, just hours before the debate commenced.
In his statement, Jaymo Ule Musee noted that Wajackoya would not attend the presidential debate because making an appearance would be like subjecting him to a joke since decisions about the outcome have already been made.
“We would like to state that our presidential candidate Prof Wajackoyah will not attend the presidential debate because we will not subject the incoming President to the joke of an already predetermined debate. The media cannot decide the outcome of an election before the poll day.”
“The notion that some candidates are trailing others or some leading others is baseless. We refuse to be counted as ‘others’ in this important democratic duty of seeking the presidency,” Jaymo said.
The team further lamented that several concerns that they had officially brought to the attention of the presidential debate secretariat about the debate on July 21 have since not been addressed.
“We would like to however state that our candidate is available to share the same podium with all the four presidential candidates as we define our agenda to all Kenyans,” Roots Party noted.
Initially Wajackoya had maintained that he would only participate in the debate if he would be sharing a podium with Raila and Ruto and not with Mwaure alone
The debate structure is however the major reason why the two candidates pulled out. The debate secretariat decided that the presidential debate will be held in two sessions just like the Nairobi gubernatorial one and the Deputy presidential one.
Wajackoya was to debate Mwaure in the first session whereas Raila was to face Ruto in the final session. The decision was reached based on how the candidates had performed in three previous opinion polls. Candidates below 5% are to face off first while those above 5% were to come in the second session.
The structure only advances the two horse race narrative yet there are four candidates that will be on the ballot. Raila had his own reasons as to why he did not want to debate with Ruto.
Aside from that, the candidates coming in the final tier of the debate are advantaged because of the timing. The second debate starts at 8 pm when most people will be watching TV unlike from 5pm when people are still struggling with the rush hour while others are still busy.
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