Christopher Msando, a senior Kenyan election official was found dead on Monday after he had been missing for three days.
Chris was earlier reported missing after he was last seen on Friday at 10pm, only to find him brutally murdered and dumped in a forest.
The official’s body was found by the police on Monday naked in a forest outside Nairobi. The body is reported to have had visible bruises in the back and on the left side of the head, and the police sources disclosed that one of his arms had been cut off.
Msando, the election board’s head of Information Communication and Technology must have been tortured then murdered – the board told the journalists on Monday.
“There is no doubt that he was tortured and murdered. The only question is who killed him and why… I demand the government provides security for all members of the IEBC for them to give Kenya free and fair elections,” said Wafula Chebukati, the chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, talking to the journalists outside the City Mortuary.
Msando was in charge of a system of electronic voter identification and vote counting, seen as a very crucial position in terms of fighting vote rigging.
The killing has put the Kenyans who saw their 2007 election descend into ethnic violence in fear, and the opposition leaders have sighted the killing could plunge next week’s national vote into turmoil.
Since there is no murderer identified, the opposition which has repeatedly accused the government of trying to rig elections at any cost, called a press conference right away.
“The key person who was perhaps holding very vital passwords has been eliminated at this delicate time. Chris Msando’s brutal killing is an attempt to drive a dagger into the heart of the forthcoming election,” Musalia Mudavadi, the founding member of NASA, Raila’s opposition party, told the journalists.
Salim Lone, Raila Odinga’s spokesperson said that the killing had removed the “one last hope” of an honest election.
“It is unbelievable. It shows that those who want to subvert the election will stop at nothing and they do not care if Kenyans know what they are doing,” Salim told the press.
“Mr. Msando held the encryption codes that ensured the integrity of results transmitted from polling station to the electoral commission’s central headquarters. Were the codes to be compromised, the results could potentially be tampered with,” he explained.
Uhuru Kenyatta, the President of Kenya and also running for the fifth and last term in power, has on different occasions weighed and denied all the accusations towards his Jubilee party.
Political analysts have warned that further violence might accompany the hotly contested August 8.
Nonetheless, Kenya has a history of questionable elections.
Reporter: Shamilah Namuddu
