Speaking in Portland, Oregon, Gachagua said the alleged infiltration was one of the reasons opposition leaders abandoned plans for a permanent joint secretariat as they prepare to select a single presidential candidate.
“We had started with a secretariat and things were going very well. Then we brought in a new principal, and he brought some two girls to the secretariat,” he said.
“We went for a meeting somewhere on Lang’ata Road. When the meeting was going on, I saw a 411 on what we had decided. Then we knew the secretariat had been infiltrated.”
He added that the opposition leaders had not even completed talking when information about the meeting was leaked to the media.
“I saw a breaking news item about what we were discussing flash on my phone’s screen,” he said.
Gachagua did not identify the principal he was referring to or provide evidence that the two women were moles.
“A secretariat is the weakest link in the unity of the opposition because the people in the secretariat may not be as strong as we are,” Gachagua said.
He insisted the decision to operate without a joint office was, therefore, deliberate and agreed among the principals.
“We don’t have a secretariat, not because it is not necessary or because we are disorganised. No, it is strategic,” he said.
The DCP leader said the principals had instead agreed that each party would maintain a small team of trusted officials until the coalition settled on its presidential candidate.
Gachagua also linked his suspicion of political aides to his experience in government, saying some of his own officials were compromised while he was Deputy President.
“Ask me. My PA was compromised by ‘Kasongo’. One of my advisers was compromised by ‘Kasongo’ when I was in office, and they sold me. They were given money, and they sold me,” he said.
Kirinyaga Woman Representative Njeri Maina, an ally of Gachagua, has also echoed the allegations.
She warned that alleged National Intelligence Service operatives could undermine the opposition's efforts to settle on a single candidate.
“In regard to the political class, NIS enlisted several operatives whom I fear might eventually sink the United Opposition, if we fall into a trap that’s premeditated by government,” Maina said in a post on X.
She added: “May the good Lord have mercy on us because the months leading to the single presidential candidate will be the longest!”
While Maina did not name the alleged operatives or provide evidence of their links to the NIS, the claims have already drawn pushback from within the opposition.
Jubilee deputy leader (Operations) Jeremiah Kioni cautioned Gachagua and opposition principals against branding fellow members “moles”.
Kioni warned that such accusations could undermine the very unity the coalition is seeking to build.
Speaking on K24, Kioni said the opposition should approach potential allies with an “open hands” attitude rather than seeking to exclude or intimidate them.
“When you are in opposition, never bully anybody. When you come with a bully attitude, that alienates the opposition and starts making it look like this cannot help us from where we are. In opposition, you come with open hands,” he said.
Kioni has also directly responded to Gachagua’s claim that members of Jubilee could be moles within the coalition.
“To claim that you are unable to form a secretariat because there are moles within the Jubilee Party, that is hitting rock bottom. It is simply appalling,” he said in Nyandarua.
Former Kirinyaga Woman Representative Wangui Ngirici has also criticised the growing tendency in DCP to label politicians who previously served in government as moles.
Ngirici questioned the criteria being used to determine who qualifies as a mole, arguing that politicians who leave government and join DCP or other opposition parties should not automatically be viewed with suspicion.
She said the branding risks creating unnecessary divisions within the opposition at a time when different political leaders are seeking to work together.
Former Unctad secretary general Mukhisa Kituyi, who had been designated the coalition's spokesperson and head of its proposed secretariat, quit and joined the Linda Mwananchi movement last week.
Kituyi said the coalition had failed to establish a functioning joint structure, and that parties preferred operating through their individual secretariats.
