Former Jubilee Party Vice Chairman David Murathe has said the party’s communications team may have worked with Cambridge Analytica during the 2017 general elections and not directly with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“There is no evidence that the President was directly involved with them. Everyone had their brief. I was not privy to the groups who were doing all this,” Murathe said.
Speaking during an interview on K24’s Punchline, Mr. Murathe said he could not understand how the data mining firm did President Uhuru Kenyatta’s speeches when most of them were in Swahili and he delivered them on the rooftop of his car.
Cambridge Analytica has been accused of securing Facebook user information without approval, which they then use in carrying out “psychological warfare“.
Mr. Murathe, however, dismissed the influence of social media on voting patterns in Kenya.
“Social Media does not work during campaigns in this country. It belongs to the elite. People who are intelligent, learned and can differentiate between what is fake news and what is not,” Mr. Murathe added.
Mr. Murathe said the party carried out a successful campaign and won because of good development track record.
A British Member of the European Parliament Alexandra Phillips this month admitted that she secretly worked for Jubilee in the 2017 presidential poll.
“I wasn’t working for Jubilee I was employed by Cambridge Analytica who had the contract with Jubilee. I was brought on as a political communications consultant for the Kenya project,” Philips told Channel 4 News.
Cambridge Analytica has been described as a “psychological warfare firm” that has meddled in several elections across the world.
