Cambridge Analytica: ODM wants foreign firms banned from Kenyan polls

The Raila Odinga-led Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) today called for a ban on involvement of foreign companies in the country’s elections.

The party spoke as revelations over the role British data mining firm Cambridge Analytica played in the 2017 presidential elections continued to unfold, with whistleblower Christopher Wylie saying he got his job as the firm’s top data analyst following the death of his predecessor Dan Muresan in Kenya in 2012.

It was after the death of Mr Muresan, son of former Romanian Agriculture Minister Ioan Avram Muresan, who worked in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 2013 campaign, that Mr Wylie was hired.

Mr Wylie has since lifted the lid on potentially illegal activities the data firm used to influence voters by leveraging on their fears and concerns.

DEATH
Mr Muresan was found dead in his hotel room, with his father saying he had “his laptop on his knees, with the TV set on fire and a glass of wine next to him”.

“I did not know this at the time when I joined, but my predecessor was working in Kenya for President Uhuru Kenyatta, and he was found dead in a hotel room. That is why they had a vacancy,” Mr Wylie said at the event hosted by Frontline Club, a private members’ club in Britain.

However, he refused to confirm or deny whether the Romanian was murdered.

“I can’t say he was murdered … He died in his hotel room,” he said.

Today, ODM secretary-general Edwin Sifuna expressed concern over the British firm’s involvement in the Kenyan poll, and challenged Jubilee to clear the air over the matter.

“We would want our Jubilee counterparts to come clean on the role Cambridge Analytica played in their campaigns so that we can openly deal with the rifts created by these political mercenaries on the fabric of the Kenyan society,” Mr Sifuna said in a statement.

LAW
To avoid such cases in future, Mr Sifuna proposed that a law be enacted banning involvement of foreign firms in Kenyan polls.

But Jubilee Party continued to deny any role played by the firm in the elections, the central plank of their defence being that in Kenya “elections are not won on social media”.

“What is this thing called Cambridge Analytica? Where was it when we were labouring to win elections? How comes it wants to reap where it did not sow? Is it a ghost worker?” Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen tweeted.

“You can’t win elections in Kenya on social media. If this animal was residing in our vernacular, I would believe,” Mr Murkomen said.

National Super Alliance (Nasa) chief executive Norman Magaya urged the United States and the United Kingdom to assist in investigating the firm for the “toxic propaganda” it ran in the divisive poll.

Cambridge Analytica officials and chief executive Alexander Nix, who has since been suspended, were caught on tape by British Channel 4 News, talking about how they fix elections.

The firm said it did messaging, party rebranding, voter surveys, and writing of the manifesto for Jubilee.