Ruto: How I'll beat Raila hands down in Round One
Deputy President William Ruto has expressed confidence he will crush Azimio flagbearer Raila Odinga in the first round.
"You cannot steal my votes," he told his adversaries.
Ruto said he has built a strong army of supporters in the Kenya Kwanza Alliance and crafted an "unrivalled economic agenda" to defeat Raila in the August 9 presidential election.
Speaking during an NTV interview on Sunday night, the DP said his opponents have resorted to all manner of unsavoury tactics to block his march to State House.
He said, however, he will outwit them at the ballot because of his "big plan".
“You cannot steal my votes. It just means that. We will win in round one. They have been very busy with two frontiers about stealing elections and about the deep state. Their plot does not add up,” Ruto said.
Saying he is not worried by his adversaries' schemes, Ruto said, "They will interfere...they will attempt and they will fail. Unless something very drastic happens, we will have a credible election.”
Ruto said there are tell-tale signs of a wider scheme by those backing his main competitor to manipulate the polls.
“We have had stories that cast doubts on transparent elections. There were efforts to remove some commissioners, remove voters from Mt Kenya and Rift Valley from the roll...that does not need a rocket scientist to know what that alludes to,” he said.
While saying he was confident in free and fair elections, the Kenya Kwanza flagbearer said he is in charge of the race, unlike his rivals, whom he said have run out of ideas.
“The only two frontiers my competitors now are left with to work their politics is to try and cook opinion polls and spread the message about stealing elections,” he said.
Ruto said interference with the election has come in the form of attempts to remove from the voters' register thousands of his supporters from his key support regions.
“It was largely people in Central and Rift Valley that were affected.What does that tell you? It doesn’t require rocket science. If you live in Kenya, you’d know that.”
Ruto had alleged that as many as 800,000 voters from Mt Kenya and Rift Valley had been struck from the voters' roll. The electoral commission called his claims unfounded.
On Monday, Ruto also claimed — without providing evidence — that some IEBC officials “have been sent packing” because of an attempt to manipulate the voters' register.
Ruto said that should he lose the election, he will respect the will of Kenyans and congratulate the winner of what is one of the country’s most competitive elections.
"You can rest assured that I will hold no demonstrations, swear myself in, uproot a railway…I will be satisfied…" he said when asked what he will do if he loses.
The DP said he was grateful he has come this far in his journey to occupy the country's second top position.
"Many people would have loved to be deputy president …It is not something I take for granted…I will be content, support who will win and become part of society,” Ruto said.
“Raila has neither an agenda nor programme for Kenyans," he said, adding his team has a better gender agenda.
He poured cold water on the ODM leader’s development plans under Azimio la Umoja as not adequately addressing the country’s economic woes.
“Whatever they tried to put together is faulty and doesn’t add up. This election is not about all these things people are talking about but the economy,” Ruto said.
The DP hailed his Kenya Kwanza team as "the only people with a plan about the economy” that is credible and has been sold to the people who support it.
“Our competitors try to plagiarise our plan. They try to take bits and pieces of it and try to cook something but what they have is faulty,” the DP said.
Ruto said his approach of collecting views from Kenyans on their development aspirations was bearing fruit and would be a game changer.
“My team has benefited from immense contributions from ordinary Kenyans. We are getting to a people’s manifesto that will reflect what ordinary people want changed in their country,” he said.
He said he had decided to reframe the country’s political discourse from the days when people sat in boardrooms with technocrats who end up with communicated plans.
“That is why we have never gotten it right. I decided we are going to begin at the bottom and have a conversation with ordinary people, asking them their issues, concerns and priorities," he said.
Ruto dismissed as false assertions he absconded his job as Deputy President, saying there is nothing he was assigned to do that is pending.
“All my roles were taken. What remained was the IBEC roles that are in the law and I gave advice once in a while and took assignments here and there.
"Being a public officer, I figured what I could do as I waited for other assignments from my boss and did what a Deputy President would do,” he said.
The DP said Raila is desperate to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta and is being helped by Cabinet Secretaries and senior state officers.
His party UDA recently wrote to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, demanding the resignation of ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru over remarks linked to the upcoming elections.
He dismissed the opinion polls attributed to the National Intelligence Service and other pollsters as part of the grand plan to frustrate his bid.
Mucheru, who is among CSs in the DP’s crosshairs, said Raila's figures have leaped to 64 per cent from the recently touted 60 per cent, which Ruto dismissed.
Ruto said he was aware of a poll by the intelligence community showing he had an eight-point lead over Raila.
However, the latest poll by Radio Africa Group showed Raila has a clear lead of 44.6 per against Ruto’s 38.9 per cent.
The poll further suggested that for the first time Ruto's lead in Central has dropped below half, to 49.4 per cent, while Raila is at 20.9 per cent.
The poll mirrored one by Infotrak, one of the country’s respected research firms, which indicated Ruto's popularity has declined to 38 per cent against Raila's 42 per cent.
It also suggested that undecided voters in Mt Kenya increased from 14 per cent to 20 per cent, while in North Rift they surged from 13 per cent to 23 per cent.
Raila’s support, political pundits argue, appears to have been buoyed by his choice of Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua as his running mate.
She has been faring better than Raila's pick of Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua.
“Karua stands to eat into and undermine Ruto's numbers greatly. Her forays in Mt Kenya are likely to deny Ruto the numbers
"[This is] more so because Ruto has chosen as running mate a man who is not an established leader in the region,” Prof Gitile Naituli, former NCIC commissioner, said.
On Cabinet Secretaries, Ruto said the law is clear on what senior state officers can and cannot do.
“That is why we have formally written to the IEBC about their involvement in politics. This is a country where you make choices.
"If you are public servant and want to do politics, do the right thing. If the law says you cannot actively participate in politics, so it is,” he said.
The DP said he would not quit his position, saying the question should be why he has not been assigned the roles of Deputy President. BY THE STAR
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