There have been talks on the air that the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga will have a handshake with President William Ruto.
According to the Jubilee party Secretary general Jeremiah Kioni, there are foreign nations, through their embassies in the country, pushing the former prime minister to have a handshake with the sitting president.
The one-time deputy presidential aspirant claims that there are always attempts by foreign countries to reconcile the opposition parties with the sitting government after every electioneering period.
“After every election, you will see the Western nations through the embassies trying to talk to all parties that took part in the election; it happened when I was with Musalia, and it has now happened. All those embassies will always be asking parties to work together,” Kioni stated while speaking to KTN News.
This comes only two days after Kioni claimed that the 2022 general elections were rigged through the help of the former IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati. He stated that Raila had won the elections with a vote count of 8,170, 355, which translates to 57% of the vote count, while Ruto garnered 5, 935, 973 votes, 41.66% of the casted votes.
The former Ndaragwa lawmaker, while speaking to the media, claimed that most of the vote manipulation was conducted in the Mt. Kenya region.
“We have maintained that the results announced by Chebukati didn’t reflect the will of Kenyans… Most of the manipulation that was done happened in the Mt. Kenya region,” Kioni started while addressing members of the press at Jubilee house recently.
The news about the privy handshake comes days after the Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga led a delegation visiting the British High Commissioner to Kenya Jane Marriott at her official residence on January 11.
In a statement shared by the chief opposition leader on his social media pages, he claimed they discussed the potential areas of collaboration between Kenya and the UK government.
“We discussed the situation in the country, potential areas of collaboration, and agreed to consult on a regular basis to discuss matters of national and mutual interest.” read part of his Twitter post.
While having a roundtable interview with local media stations, president Ruto highlighted that he didn’t intend to have a handshake with the opposition as his predecessor had done. He also noted that the creation of the office of the opposition leader wasn’t meant for an individual, as a section of Kenyans had interpreted.
