Fake story on Raila and Kerry circulates on Kenyan websites

Some Kenyan websites are circulating a news story about former US Secretary of State John Kerry apologising to Raila Odinga for the Carter Centre's allegedly botched assessment of the August 8 election.

That story is an example of fake news.

Mwakilishi.com, a news site popular among members of the Kenyan diaspora in the US, posted the story on Sunday.

At least four other websites — political.co.ke, hivisasa.com, tuko.co.ke and kenya-today.com — carried essentially the same article.

In it, Mr Kerry, the co-leader of the Carter Centre's Kenya election- monitoring team, is said to have given an interview to the BBC in which he purportedly said: "I still maintain my previous position that the queuing, identification and voting at the polling stations were largely smooth and peaceful.”

Mr Kerry supposedly added: ”However, I want to sincerely apologize unreservedly to Raila Odinga for severally urging him to concede defeat yet total tally was arrived at through a flawed process.”

A fake

Responding to a query about the story's veracity, Carter Centre spokeswoman Soyia Ellison wrote in an email, “This is, indeed, a fake. John Kerry did not give an interview to BBC or anyone else.”

David Carroll, director of the Carter Centre's democracy programme, warned in a separate message that “it's easy for fake news to spread.”

Mr Carroll added: “It’s important for citizens all over the world to make an extra effort to confirm that what they read or hear comes from a credible source.”

Mr Kerry's only public comment to date on the Supreme Court's nullification of the election came in the form of a September 14 New York Times commentary co-written with former prime minister of Senegal Aminata Toure.

“Multiple media reports suggested inaccurately that we and other international observers had declared the election free and fair,” Mr Kerry and Ms Toure wrote.

“Our preliminary report two days after the election insisted that the tallying process was in progress and that an overall assessment could be provided only after the process was complete.”

'Unreliable'

“We also indicated that the electronic transmission of results proved unreliable, with electronic scans of results forms not arriving as planned at constituency-level tally centers, where the results were tabulated.”

John Wanjohi, listed as a principal of Mwakilishi.com, did not respond to queries about his website's posting of a fabricated news story.

The Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission has set a repeat poll on October 17.