Gachagua says police cannot be relied on to secure the Mbeere North by-election
By Steve Ireri, November 17, 2025Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has defended his remarks urging local youth to keep watch around polling stations during the upcoming Mbeere North by-election, attributing the call to what he described as widespread mistrust of police officers among residents.
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Gachagua, who is actively campaigning for Democratic Party [DP] candidate Newton Karish in the November 27 by-election, addressed concerns that emerged after an Embu journalist who was interviewing him on the night of Sunday, November 16, 2025, suggested that his statements risked encouraging unauthorised monitoring of polling centres.
“There is an IEBC official who has spoken to us and who has asked not to be named because he does not have permission to speak to the press, but he focused and asked us to ask you two things. One, that people who don’t belong to Mbeere should not come to polling stations; parties usually send their own MPs to oversee the election,” the journalist asked.
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The journalist, who was part of a team that held a joint interview with the former Mathira MP, had questioned why Gachagua appeared to be mobilising villagers to oversee the voting process despite IEBC agents being formally accredited for that role inside the stations.
“Two, what will these men you said will be at the polling stations be doing, when there will already be assigned agents to represent and oversee the polls for you inside the stations?”
In his response, Gachagua maintained that his instructions had been misunderstood. He clarified that only accredited agents would operate inside polling stations and that MPs or party allies wishing to participate in election oversight should formally join as agents.
He stressed that his appeal to youth was strictly for them to remain outside the stations, where he claimed political actors from outside the constituency had historically attempted to influence voters on election day.
“I did not say that the MPs and youth should be inside the polling stations. We said they would be outside. The MPs who want to come, let them come and become agents inside the stations,” Gachagua said.
According to Gachagua, residents had raised concerns with him about individuals visiting polling centres to sway voter choices in previous contests.
He said this feedback informed his position that only Mbeere North locals should be present around polling environments and that youth from the area, not party-affiliated groups, should help ensure that external actors do not interfere with the process.
“But what Mbeere people told me is that they don’t want people who usually come to convince people about their votes on that election day outside the stations. And that is why we are saying our men should be outside of the stations to make sure no one comes to threaten people so they can vote. Let everyone be away at that time because this election belongs to Mbeere North people only,” Gachagua said.
Gachagua added that he did not believe police officers would offer impartial security during the mini-poll and argued that the community, therefore, needed to take responsibility for monitoring activity outside voting centres.
He also said his campaign had not been issuing handouts to residents, insisting that the warm receptions he had been receiving in the constituency were voluntary and not incentivised.
“And what we said is that youth from the village should go and watch over the polls. We did not say our party’s youth or Karish’s people. We told the youth from the village to go and watch so that people from outside don’t come to influence the polls. And we cannot leave that work to the police because we cannot trust them. No one can trust police officers,” Gachagua said.
The former Deputy President also revealed that once campaigns conclude, his team will leave the immediate polling areas and allow their accredited agents to take up their roles inside the stations, as the law requires.
“There is a time that will come when even we walk away and leave the people to vote. Once my team is done with campaigns, we will leave our agents inside the stations and go and wait. And note that even in our campaigns we are not issuing handouts to people for them to vote for Karish; they are just receiving us warmly,” he said.