Kenya: William Ruto Petitions AU, EU & ICC, As Violence Mars His Campaigns Ahead Of August General Elections

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Kenya To Privatize 35 State Owned Companies President Ruto Says

Kenyan President William Ruto

By Uganda Online Media

President Yoweri Museveni has appointed Maj Tom Magambo who has been in the Internal Security Organisations(ISO) as the new police Criminal Investigations Director.

“President Museveni has promoted Private Tom Magambo to the rank of Major and appointed him Director Criminal Investigations of the Uganda Police Force,” the acting UPDF spokesperson, Lt Col Ronald Kakurungu said in a statement.

Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto has called on the international community to closely watch the campaigns for the country’s August General Election, citing recent violence witnessed at his public rallies.

In a protest letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party is alleging police inaction in the face the campaign violence. The letter is copied to the officials of the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The EU and the AU regularly send observers to Kenyan elections while the ICC is believed to have put Kenya on its radar since it was called in to investigate the killings and displacements that followed the disputed presidential vote of 2007 and subsequent worst election-related violence in 2007 and 2008.

President Kenyatta and Dr Ruto were among six Kenyans initially indicted and prosecuted over the post-election violence before their cases collapsed for lack of evidence or withdrawal of witnesses.

The trial of a Kenyan lawyer accused of bribing witnesses to defeat Dr Ruto’s case is ongoing at The Hague-based court.

The start of the trial, amid heightened political activity in Kenya, sparked conspiracy theories among the deputy president’s supporters about an alleged scheme to frustrate his presidential ambitions.

In the protest letter to the president, UDA is blaming the attempts to disrupt meetings addressed by the DP on a plot to block him from campaigning in the perceived strongholds of his main rival Raila Odinga.

Mr Odinga, in his fifth attempt for the top seat with the backing of President Kenyatta, has distanced his supporters from the violence at Dr Ruto’s rallies and accused the DP of crying wolf.

The police spokesman has also defended the law enforcement body, saying it was politically non-partisan.

On Thursday, President Kenyatta appeared to dismiss Dr Ruto’s complaints, urging the police to ignore alleged attempts to intimidate them while performing their duty.

Political zoning, where candidates and their parties seek to lock out rivals from campaigning in their perceived support base, is a common practice in the Kenyan political landscape, on and off election season.

Reports of past independent investigations into election-related violence, including the Justice Waki Commission that probed the 2007/2008 bloodletting, have identified political zoning and ethnic profiling as a key trigger.

The country’s major political parties and leading politicians, including the two front runners — Raila and Ruto — in this year’s race to succeed President Kenyatta, have their core support base in regions where their respective ethnic communities are demographically dominant.

Ahead of the August elections, security agencies and the anti-hate watchdog have put many of Mr Odinga’s and Dr Ruto’s perceived strongholds on the watch for potential violence and hate speech flashpoints.

Dr Ruto himself has recently had to issue a public apology over reports of the use of hate speech at a public rally he addressed in his backyard of Eldoret on January 8.

The rally, one of several he addressed during his campaign tour of three counties in the Rift Valley region considered his political stronghold, was marred by media reports of ethnic incitement or racial slurs attributed to some of his close political allies.

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