Kuria: We ‘intervened’ to save uhuru from 2013 run-off
Kuria alleged that he and current Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir were involved in an intervention involving IEBC servers.
Former Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria has made fresh claims about the disputed 2013 presidential election, saying he and other political figures took legal and other steps that helped former President Uhuru Kenyatta avoid a run-off.
Speaking on a vernacular station, Inooro FM, Kuria claimed that he, former President Kenyatta’s allies and senior Jubilee figures intervened over the treatment of rejected presidential votes and alleged that action was also taken involving Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) servers.
Kuria said he, Dennis Itumbi and Florence Jematiah went to court to challenge the inclusion of rejected votes in determining the threshold required to win the presidency.
“Uhuru knows better what we did for him in 2013 and 2017. He knows the strategy we applied. In 2013, he got the +1 of around six thousand votes,” Kuria said.
Court records confirm that Kuria, Itumbi and Jematiah were among petitioners who filed a 2013 Supreme Court petition challenging the IEBC’s treatment of rejected votes.
The petition argued that including the votes in the final tally affected the percentage achieved by presidential candidates.
Kuria said the case was pursued through lawyers Fred Ngatia and Njoroge Regeru and claimed that, without the challenge, Kenyatta would have been forced into a second round against Raila Odinga.
“In 2013, we were supposed to have a runoff; he knows it. I saved him from the runoff,” Kuria said.
He went further, alleging that he and current Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir were involved in an intervention involving IEBC servers.
“We even did something in the servers to save him; we did it with Davis Chirchir to save him from facing Baba in a runoff,” Kuria said.
Kuria’s remarks come amid renewed debate over disputed presidential elections following recent comments by Kenyatta suggesting that Raila Odinga won the 2022 election.
The claims, however, represent Kuria’s account and should be distinguished from established judicial findings.
In 2013, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging Kenyatta’s election and upheld his declaration after the IEBC announced that he had received 6,173,433 votes, representing 50.07 per cent of the votes cast.
The Supreme Court also later upheld William Ruto’s victory in the 2022 presidential election after petitions challenging the result, finding that the allegations of electoral irregularities and interference with the results had not been proved to the required standard.
