ODM leader Raila Odinga won the 2007 general election, Media Owners Association chairman SK Macharia has said, adding “we have clear statistics”.
Macharia, Royal Media Services owner, made the claim while making a presentation on the election laws debate in Parliament on Tuesday.
“The one who was declared the winner in 2007 was not the winner… We tracked all the results through satellite phones,” he said. “As per my records, Raila won the elections.”
Macharia said he tried to convince Kibaki and Raila to follow a “pure presidential system”.
“I tried to convince them even President Uhuru Kenyatta knows this. If you read the IEBC summary report, it says there was confusion in the 2013 register,” he said.
He added: “Whatever I say here, that media owners dispute, I will take full responsibility for. We can use satellite phones in areas not covered by mobile phone networks.”
The post election violence saw machete-wielding youths burn houses, rape women and kill members of rival communities.
Macharia said in the run-up to the March 4, 2013 general election that he would use his media house to back Raila’s presidential campaign.
He also said he would conduct a door-to-door campaign for the former Prime Minister as he had promised to fight poverty and ensure food is affordable for all Kenyans.
Macharia further said the public needs to know Kenya did not do “proper things” in the 1992 and 1997 general elections.
“Equipment does break down. You have to stand by and replace them. You just need to plan properly and do what’s right for the country,” he said.
All eyes were on the Senate as it reconvened for a special sitting to consider controversial changes to the electoral laws adopted by the National Assembly last week.
The changes that include a manual backup system for voter identification and results transmission and the timeliness for the acquisition of election ICTs, significantly alter the Elections Laws (Amendments) Act 2016.
The law arose from a negotiated agreement reached between Cord and Jubilee that ended the anti-IEBC protests.
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