Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has addressed claims by a section of politicians claiming that the government will interfere with the August 9 General Elections.
Speaking in Naivasha on Wednesday, June 8 during the workshop to launch the national cyber security strategy, Matiang’i stated that the government respects the democratic space and freedom of expression and speech as provided in the Kenyan Constitution 2010.
“We are approaching elections and the biggest debate is about how we are going to behave with each other in the era of fake news and the unprecedented abuse of social media. The government is not going to act otherwise; we respect the freedom of Kenyans,” Matiang’i said.
Matiang’i was responding to members of the Kenya Kwanza Alliance team led by Deputy President William Ruto who has alleged that there is an ongoing plot by what they termed as “the deep state” to interfere with the transmission of election results.
“Now that the system and the deep state are stuck plus their political manifesto they have resorted to manufacturing political polls while turning to the National Intelligence Service (NIS) for relevance,” Ruto said while on the campaign trail in Mandera on Wednesday.
However, Matiang’i reiterated that the workshop on cyber security was only meant to protect data within the security forces and business community.
“We have been accused of all manner of things but this will not tempt us to retrogressive steps like shutting down the internet during the elections as we respect the rights of all,” he said.
