{"id":146265,"date":"2026-07-09T16:02:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/violence-bribery-claims-put-ol-kalou-by-election-in-jeopardy\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:02:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:02:44","slug":"violence-bribery-claims-put-ol-kalou-by-election-in-jeopardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/violence-bribery-claims-put-ol-kalou-by-election-in-jeopardy\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence, Bribery Claims Put Ol Kalou By-Election in Jeopardy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>NAIROBI, Kenya Jul 9 \u2013 The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has dispatched investigation teams to Ol Kalou to probe a series of allegations surrounding the ongoing by-election campaign, including voter bribery, illegal late-night campaigns, violence and the presence of suspected criminal gangs in the constituency.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IEBC Chairperson Erastus Ethekon said the commission had received reports of widespread electoral malpractices and security concerns that could undermine the integrity of the poll.<\/p>\n<p>Among the issues under investigation are claims of voter bribery, reports of campaigns being conducted beyond the legally permitted hours, and the death of one person in Ol Kalou on July 1 under circumstances linked to the heightened political activity in the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we find any culpability or any breaches of the code of conduct, the proper remedies shall apply and up to disqualifying some of those candidates and in the situation working with the security officials and other stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we find that the environment is not conducive enough for us to conclude the the by-election in Ol Kalou, we\u2019ll be left with no choice other than to take the most unfortunate and drastic step of postponing the elections in Ol Kalou,\u201d the IEBC Chairperson said.<\/p>\n<p>Nine candidates, including Sammy Kamau Ngotho of DCP and Samuel Muchina Nyagah of UDA, are set to face off in what is shaping up to be a closely contested race for the vote-rich Mt Kenya region.<\/p>\n<p>Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro and Democracy for the Citizens Party leader Rigathi Gachagua has questioned what he described as an unusually heavy deployment of government resources during campaigns for the Ol Kalou parliamentary by-election.<\/p>\n<p>The government has this week been on a spree launching projects such as two fishing boats worth Ksh.5 million boats, the distribution of 20,000 six-kilogram LPG gas cylinders to residents at a subsidised price of Ksh.1,500.<\/p>\n<p>The other initiative include road construction, markets, 23 electricity projects and power connections, title deeds and water projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are spending over KSh10 billion on projects in roads, water, gas, avocado farming and other sectors,\u201d former CS Moses Kuria stated.<\/p>\n<p>The government insists the projects are not intended to influence voters.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NAIROBI, Kenya Jul 9 \u2013 The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has dispatched investigation teams to Ol Kalou to probe a series of allegations surrounding the ongoing by-election campaign, including voter bribery, illegal late-night campaigns, violence and the presence of suspected criminal gangs in the constituency. IEBC Chairperson Erastus Ethekon said the commission had received [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}