Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung'wa. He has revealed why DP William Ruto did not attend the much publicised presidential running mates debate on Monday. [Photo: ntv.co.ke]Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung'wa has said that Deputy President William Ruto could not attend the presidential running mates debate held at Catholic University of East Africa on Monday because it was below global standards.Ichung'wa has also said that the invite to the DP to attend the flopped debate was only sent on Thursday when the organisers knew 'pretty clear' that Ruto had a busy campaign schedule to attend to which he said is in the public domain."The organisers of this debate were not fair to Kenyans and they (Kenyans) deserve a better organisation than the sort of thing we saw yesterday. The debate was way far below the global standards and you do not expect the person of a Deputy President to attend such an event," said Ichung'wa on NTV's AmLive show on Tuesday.The MP who attended the debate to represent Ruto but was not allowed to participate said that more engagement between the organisers and the participating candidates was required to make the debate a success.Ichung'wa stated that the organisers even had no courtesy to inform Ruto on the rules of engagement, time and date such that he had to learn it from media advertisements."Even common courtesy of agreeing on a date, time the content, mode of moderation and all the other things that are critical on such debates, were all overlooked by the organisers," said Ichung'wa.The MP went on to castigate the media saying it had long lost credibility and objectivity to handle such debates with the highest thresh of neutrality and fairness.

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