Azimio Gives Conditions for Raila to Attend Tuesday’s Presidential Debate

Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya coalition party has given conditions for its presidential candidate Raila Odinga to participate in the July 26th presidential debate.

The coalition’s secretary-general Junet Mohammed said Odinga, who is giving his fifth stab at the presidency, will only attend the forum if the moderators agree to focus on the main issues touching on the lives of Kenya, particularly integrity, corruption, and governance.

"Raila will only be on the debate if the panel will address Integrity, corruption, and governance. If the discussion is based on other issues, then we will send Babu Owino to debate William Ruto," said Junet.

He stressed that if the debate will be similar to the Deputy Presidential Debate pitting UDA presidential running mate Rigathi Gachagua and Martha Karua of the Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya coalition, then Odinga will not participate in it.

“If we are going to discuss issues which are not important like we saw with Rigathi Gachagua, we will send someone else to face off with Ruto…Our competitors want to debate about President Uhuru Kenyatta, let them go and look for him and not drag him into the debate,” he added.

On Thursday, Deputy President William Ruto presidential campaign secretariat confirmed that he will attend the much-anticipated debate but appealed to the moderators to ensure that the discussion is not trivialized.

“We have made a formal request to the Presidential Debates secretariat to make public the time allocation to issues affecting Kenyans, including governance and integrity, agriculture, healthcare, MSMEs, manufacturing, housing, digital economy, foreign policy, and so on,” secretariat’s Director of Communications Hussein Mohamed said

Ruto’s team had previously threatened not to participate in the 2022 presidential debates citing media bias. 

Tuesday’s debate will take place at the Catholic University for Eastern Africa in Nairobi from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm.

The televised debate will be conducted in two tiers, with the first featuring candidates with less than 5 percent approval ratings based on three recent opinion polls while the second-tier one will involve candidates who have polled above 5 percent in the same surveys.

This means Roots Party presidential candidate George Wajackoyah will face off with his Agano Party counterpart Waihiga Mwaure in the first-tier debate while Ruto will go head-to-head with Odinga in the second-tier debate.