Murang’a Senator Joe Nyutu has called on media to be on high alert during the Thursday, July 16 Ol Kalou Parliamentary By-election, warning that the unprecedented deployment of security forces to the constituency points to a possible attempt by the government to manipulate the results.

Nyutu said that the past two weeks had seen a flood of government goodies into the town; mattresses, gas cylinders, speedboats in an incomplete dam, and other items, in what he described as open and widely documented voter bribery.

“There has been a lot of bribery by government and it has been recorded widely, including giving speedboats in a dam, not a lake, in a dam that is not even completed,” he said during an interview on Spice FM, adding that the IEBC had done nothing meaningful to address the violations.

He said the sudden switch from gifts to guns, with reports of around one thousand police officers, GSU units, and water cannons now deployed to the town, was deeply telling.

“I have not seen any water cannons and that kind of number of police officers deployed in a by-election before. We believe that the government is planning not to steal the election, but to rob it,” he stated.

Nyutu said the heavy presence of plain-clothes officers in particular was cause for alarm, warning they could be used to cause mayhem at polling stations or interfere with ballot boxes.

“The police officers who have been deployed in Ol Kalou are not there in good faith. The water cannons, why would you have water cannons in a place that has not had any violence other than the violence perpetrated by the government itself?” he posed.

He drew a comparison to what he alleged happened at a polling station in Baringo North, where he claimed agents were kicked out and ballot boxes interfered with, suggesting a similar scenario could unfold in Ol Kalou.

“We suspect that is why there is this kind of deployment,” he said.

Nyutu’s appeal was directed at the media.

“We are asking and requesting the media, both local and international, to be very vigilant and report everything that happens. You are the only people who can monitor and report this,” he said.

Senator Nyutu also called on the international community to watch the process closely.

“If Kenya is a democratic state and prides itself in carrying out free and fair nominations, then that should be displayed tomorrow. We want to believe that the people of Ol Kalou will be given an opportunity to elect their new member of parliament without any interference, especially by security forces,” he concluded.