CEO faces deportation

NAIROBI. - A US-based campaign data company has said that its CEO faces deportation from Kenya after working on the opposition’s campaign ahead of a tightly contested presidential election.

The detention of the CEO of Aristotle Inc has raised concerns about the upcoming vote just days after a top Kenyan election official responsible for the electronic voting system was found tortured and killed.

An Aristotle representative said CEO John Aristotle Phillips, an American, and Canadian staffer Andreas Katsouris were detained on Friday night and faced deportation later on Saturday. Phillips was at the US Embassy in Nairobi.

The two men were assisting opposition candidate Raila Odinga with issues including strategy and data analysis and had chosen to get involved in the Kenyan election because they thought it had the potential for irregularities, Brandi Travis of Aristotle told the Associated Press.

“We pick our international campaigns very carefully,” Ms Travis said.

“Odinga was a candidate they really believed in.”

Both Odinga and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta were in their final day of campaigning on Saturday as some in the East African nation worried that the vote could turn violent, as it did a decade ago.

Kenyatta is the son of Kenya’s first president; Mr Odinga is the son of the country’s first vice president and has run in vain for the top post in three previous contests.