Following Wednesday's startling disclosures about election hacking, House Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wa attacked the Azimio Coalition, calling its leaders hypocrites.
Ichung'wa led Kenya Kwanza-aligned parliamentarians to criticize the Raila Odinga camp on Thursday in response to a report claiming Israeli hackers entered President William Ruto's 2022 campaign to benefit Azimio.
The lawmakers charged Odinga and his allies with lying when they claimed the election was unfair.
We are not surprised that the same persons who have consistently denounced election rigging also intended to interfere with and rigging elections, Ichung'wa remarked.
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He charged Odinga with encouraging false information to cast doubt on Ruto's victory, which the Supreme Court had recognized.
The Kikuyu lawmaker pleaded with Odinga to concede his electoral defeat and refrain from interfering with Kenyans' lives by holding more political rallies.
Odinga has consistently asserted that the system and the deep state are to blame for the theft of his elections. The speaker claimed that he possessed the design and deep condition and had the tools to hack into his rivals' and electoral systems.
"We want to advise Kenyans to disregard the cries for provocation by Odinga in his attempt to find another handshake; President William Ruto has been clear that it will not happen, not occurring, and will never happen," the statement reads.
He advised President Ruto to resist being intimidated by Odinga's anti-government demonstrations.
Hacking Scheme
The Guardian, a UK-based daily, said on Wednesday that the hacking attempts, which started in July 2022, solely targeted the campaign of the time's vice president, William Ruto, and gained access to Gmail and Telegram channels.
An investigation done by a group of more than 100 foreign investigative journalists is in the report.
Emails and private chats of Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir and digital strategist Dennis Itumbi, then Ruto's chief of staff, were accessible to Israeli hackers.
Israeli national and former military operator Tal Hanan led an international disinformation effort aimed at elections, including those in African nations.
The operation is under Hanan, who goes by the alias "Jorge," from an industrial park 20 miles north of Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel, according to the Guardian.
He is said to have boasted to the undercover reporters about his ability to damage elections and spread false information.
Days before Kenya's 2022 elections, he demonstrated his skills by showing how he could utilize hacking methods to snoop on political advisers' messages, according to The Guardian.
The Guardian said that Hanan never clearly stated during his encounters with the undercover journalists that he had been paid to work in Kenya or disclosed who his client was (s)
The Guardian stated that Hanan "appeared to show them "live" demos of hacks targeting three aides close to Ruto, who was a presidential contender at the time," when showcasing Team Jorge's capabilities to the journalists who were masquerading as potential clients.
One presentation appeared to be an intrusion into Gmail, and another focused on accounts on Telegram.
We Misled The Hackers, Itumbi
Itumbi stated that there was more activity on his Telegram near the end of the campaign season in response to the recent discoveries.
However, he pointed out that the effort tricked hackers by using a few Telegram groups.
Along with another two individuals, we formed a group to deceive those attempting to gain information illegally purposefully. We posed as agents and claimed that their presence was unneeded and that the exercise was expensive. We've even decided against choosing agents," Itumbi remarked.
According to Itumbi, they now "know the hackers believed our contrived discussion" as a result of the exposé.
