RUTO MAKES NEW TOUGH DEMANDS

The presidential campaign team of Kenya Kwanza candidate William Ruto is now demanding disclosure of time limits that will be allocated to various issues that will be discussed in next week’s Presidential Candidates debate.

In a letter to the Presidential Debate Secretariat, Hussein Mohammed, the Communications Director for Ruto’s Presidential Campaign, called on the moderators to allocate equal time to issues affecting Kenyans and “equally allow candidates a fair opportunity to address them.”

“To that end, we wish to know in advance the number of minutes that will be allocated to respective interventions including, but not restricted to Governance and Integrity, Agriculture, Healthcare, MSMEs and Manufacturing, Housing, the Digital Economy, Foreign Policy, and so on and so forth,” reads the letter in part.

Ruto’s Presidential campaign team claims that during the Deputy Presidential Candidates debate on Tuesday, July 19 crucial time was wasted on issues that are of not much interest to Kenyans.

“We note with dismay that an overwhelming allocation of time was devoted to canvassing personality, political relationships and similarly trivial pursuits at the expense of the issues that Kenyans demand and deserve to know from the campaigns. We regret to observe that a crucial opportunity was therefore laid to utter waste,” added Mohammed.

Meanwhile, Ruto’s campaign team has confirmed that he will be attending the debate slated for Tuesday, July 26.

“…the Kenya Kwanza presidential candidate, Dr William Ruto, looks forward to taking part in the presidential debate next week. In that connection, he is ready to answer any question and speak to any matter that arises during the debate,” said Mohammed.

Like the previous debates, the Presidential Candidates debate will be conducted in two tiers; the first one for those with less than 5% approval ratings and the second one for those with 5% and above.

The first-tier debate featuring candidates who have polled less than 5% in three recent opinion polls will be moderated by NTV’s Smriti Vidyarthi and KTN’s Ken Mijungu.

The second-tier debate featuring Ruto and Azimio coalition party candidate Raila Odinga will be moderated by Yvonne Okwara of Citizen TV and Eric Latiff of Spice FM and KTN News.