Kenya’s ruling Jubilee party has defended its hiring of a private British behavioural research and strategic communication company, SCL.
SCL which is a consultancy firm affiliated to Cambridge Analytica, according to Kenya’s ruling party was paid to help in “branding” services in the 2017 presidential election.
Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of an election manipulation scandal involving Facebook.
The London-based firm is best known for helping Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential bid in 2016 and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 and 2017 elections.
These details were made public according to video secretly recorded and broadcast by Britain’s Channel 4 News on Monday.
Mark Turnbull, a managing director for Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections was heard in the Channel 4 News video, bragging about the extent of his firms’ influence in the Kenyan elections in both 2013 and 2017.
On Tuesday, Jubilee vice-chairman David Murathe said the consultancy firm “were basically branding and all that but not directly.”
Meanwhile Kenya’s opposition has reacted angrily to Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the Kenyan elections. Junet Mohamed who is a lawmaker for ODM party and its director of elections was quoted by Reuters as saying that “The same propaganda that they used in Trump’s election is what has been used in Kenya. Cambridge Analytica is now becoming an international propagandist.”
President Uhuru Kenyatta won a disputed re-run presidential election in 2017, boycotted by the opposition Nasa coalition triggering tension in the country.
Source: Africafeeds.com
