By Joshua Cheloti

Former Mukurweini Member of Parliament Kabando wa Kabando has listed a number of reasons that he believes contributed to Azimio leader Raila Odinga’s failure to win the Presidency in 2022.

Raila had the backing of the then outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta and state machinery but ended up losing the seat to William Ruto, who was at the time the Deputy President.

But according to Kabando wa Kabando, the former Prime Minister lost largely because of his chaotic campaigns.

He claims Raila believed Uhuru would help him win the Presidency and that he avoided anyone that the retired President didn’t like.

“I wish Raila had won the presidency 2022. But he lost largely because his campaigns were so chaotic and himself acted like he was already in statehouse,” said the former MP in a series of tweets.

“He deluded himself that Uhuru would help him and avoided anyone Uhuru didn’t like. He was led to avoidable failure by crooks,” he added.

The handshake, Kabando notes, also contributed to Azimio’s failure to beat Kenya Kwanza in the highly congested Presidential contest.

But even with the loss, a fifth for Raila in hunt for the house on the hill, Kabando believes the ODM leader can leave a legacy in the country’s political history.

“Rt.Hon. Raila Amollo Odinga still has a historic opportunity to anchor his legacy as a liberation icon, a democrat,” noted the former MP.

“I feel for him. I like him. I’ve voted him twice as my president. But we owe Mzee only the truth, which is that we lost it because of #handshake. Ruto is President,” he added.

Final results announced by IEBC indicated that Ruto narrowly edged out Raila with a margin of about 200,000 votes.

The Azimio candidate garnered 6.1 million votes compared to 7.1 million votes that were cast in favour of the Kenya Kwanza candidate William Ruto.

The ODM leader has however continued to insist he was the legitimate winner in the elections.

On Saturday, he shared a link of Presidential results he claimed affirms that he beat Ruto.

“We’d like to reiterate that the collated results on this link, kenyaelectionresults.com, leave no room for doubt that Azimio emerged victorious in the last election,” the former Prime Minister tweeted as he asked the President to vacate office ahead of Monday protests.

Data in the link has however been dismissed by the former Mukurweini MP.

He described it as hogwash and the height of deceptive politics.

“Dear Rt.Hon. Raila Odinga: To claim a total of 112,032 votes in 4 (Othaya, Mukurweini, Kieni, Tetu) of 6 Nyeri constituencies were deducted from you and added to Ruto’s, and that 0 votes were stolen in Mathira & Nyeri Town, is the height of deceptive politics. WE lost to Ruto,” said Kabando wa Kabando.

He added that, “This ‘whistle-blower’ report is hogwash.”