Raila Threatens Economic Boycott on Firms Involved in Bungling August 8th Election

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has threatened to call for economic boycott of products from companies he says took part in sabotaging the August 8th presidential election.

The threat by the former Prime Minister comes barely a day after he accused giant telecommunication firm Safaricom of conniving with a French digital security firm, OT-Morpho to rig the August 8tn presidential elections outcome to the advantage of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) alleged thar Safaricom routed results from polling stations to OT-Morpho servers in France to manipulate it.

He said the mobile phone firm deliberately sabotaged the process of results transmission by routing figures from the polling stations to OT-Morpho servers, creating a window for the manipulation of the numbers.

“We will not allow Kenya to be the playground for forces that want to stifle our progress as a nation. In fact, we are considering beginning a period of economic boycott of products and corporations that are working against the interests of the people of Kenya,” Raila told a press briefing on Wednesday at Okoa Kenya offices in Lavington, Nairobi.

However, responding to the allegations Wednesday, Safaricom has refuted the accusations, terming them reckless, callous and unnecessary, and warned that the claims could endanger the lives of its staff and their families.

Safaricom Chief executive Bob Collymore,, said the firm was ready to be probed by any agency on the role it played in the elections.

“Safaricom is ready to face any investigations and/or private prosecutions, brought by any party, on this matter,” he said.

He dismissed Raila's allegations, saying that Safaricom carried out its mandate as contracted by the electoral commission.

“Contrary to what is alleged in the Nasa statement, results from Kiems kits from Safaricom zones were transmitted and are on the IEBC web portal,” he said.

"The responsibility of transmitting the results from the IEBC servers to the constituency and national tallying centres was the preserve of the commission, and the political players, among them Nasa, were aware," said Mr Collymore.

In his statement on Wednesday, Raila said big corporations are part and parcel of the killing of democracy in Kenya and threatened to call for economic boycott.

“The people are the main market for the products of these corporations, we can retaliate by telling our people not to buy their products.

“South Africans did it in their struggle against apartheid. We may be forced to do it in our struggle for democracy and progress. That time is coming,” said Odinga.