William Ruto received 50.49 percent of the vote, while Raila Odinga received 48.8 percent of the vote. – The people of Kenya, and the 14 million who turned up to vote, are the real winners, said William Ruto in his victory speech, before bragging about the work of the electoral commission and the commission’s leader. – All you need is a simple calculator, and you have the result, said Ruto as a sort of response to the allegations of election fraud. Ruto thanked his opponent Raila Odinga, and also outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta. Both Odinga and Kenyatta have been Ruto’s opponents in this election, but in the past both have also been Ruto’s partners. Odinga’s team with allegations of cheating The man who was praised by Ruto is Wafula Chebukati, head of the country’s electoral commission, who today named William Ruto as the winner of the election. There is no need for a second election round when Ruto received more than 50 percent of the vote. Before the appointment, a prayer was held for Kenya to remain peaceful after the result is known. The country has a history of violence linked to political elections, and this election is both jammed and contested. – A result that cannot be verified has not been verified, says Saitabao Ole Kanchory to Citizen TV. He is the leader of Raila Odinga’s party Azimio and he demanded to see and approve the election results so that Odinga would appear in the room where the election results were to be announced. Kanchory presented clear allegations of election fraud. The interview audio was cut several times and sometimes replaced with music. The claims have not been commented on by anyone else, nor was concrete evidence presented for the claims. – We have intelligence information that the voting system has been hacked, and that some of the Electoral Commission’s employees have committed electoral fraud, Kanchory told the TV channel. Citizen TV’s reporter at the site says that violence has been used on the outside of the building where the announcement is to be made, and several of those who had turned up have left the town before the announcement has taken place. There is also a picture of violence inside the room where the result was presented. Raila Odinga’s election campaign team believes there has been fraud in the Kenyan election. Photo: Mosa’ab Elshamy / AP Split electoral commission Immediately after the allegations from Odinga’s election campaign team, the vice-president of Kenya’s electoral commission held a press conference at a hotel some distance from where she was supposed to be to participate in the announcement of the result. At the press conference, she said that she, and three others in the electoral commission, distance themselves from the result. Thus, the electoral commission in Kenya is divided in its view of the election result. – The way in which this process has taken place must be addressed. We cannot take ownership of the results that will be made public. But there is an open door, where people can take the result to court. So I am asking Kenyans to remain peaceful. The rule of law will win in the end, said Juliana Cherera. She was not willing to take questions, and did not go into detail about what the disagreement was about. The head of the Electoral Commission, Wafula Chebukati, also spoke of irregular incidents. About election workers who have disappeared from the polling station where they were supposed to be on guard. And about election workers who have been arrested by the police, without reason. But unlike Cherera, he stands behind the result. William Ruto showed up early at the Bomas of Kenya, where the election results were announced, but his opponent, Raila Odinga, never showed up. William Ruto is one of Kenya’s richest men, and hopes to become Kenya’s next president. Photo: MARCO LONGARI / AFP Many challenges await At the same time that Odinga’s supporters make allegations of electoral fraud outside the polling station, William Ruto’s supporters stood inside the room where the announcement was to be made and smiled, laughed and danced to the sound of the chorus. They probably already knew which way it was going. Diplomats from all over the world and Kenya’s top politicians had also gathered in the same hall. The counting has been very close, and until today’s announcement it has not been possible to suggest who would emerge victorious from the election. As president of Kenya, William Ruto faces several major challenges: Kenya has had a sharp increase in national debt and unemployment. The ongoing inflation in the world affects many Kenyans who struggle to have enough money for food and essential goods. There is an extensive drought in parts of the country right now. – I am fully aware that Kenya is in a situation where it is “all hands on deck”, said Ruto in his victory speech. All counting stopped suddenly Two of the largest Kenyan media houses, Citizen and Daily Nation, stopped their counting before they had reached the finish line. The short explanation that has come from the media houses is that those counting the votes needed a break. But many believe the counting stopped because the result was very close. It has now been several days since the previous update, and both media houses stopped almost at the same time. Citizen gradually removed all graphics from its pages. William Ruto has made a better choice than the opinion polls suggested ahead of the election. Photo: SIMON MAINA / AFP The Electoral Commission’s tally is the official one, and their tally takes longer than the media houses’ tally because they have to be sure that everything has gone right before the votes are registered as official results. The interim count to the media houses has shown that the election is historically jammed. Talk to the TV channel Citizen showed an almost dead end, and a very narrow lead to Raila Odinga before the graphic was removed. At the Daily Nation newspaper, it was William Ruto who had the most votes when counting stopped. He then led with 51.18 percent against Odinga’s 48.14 percent. Both media houses have access to exactly the same source, but even if they were almost on target, the result was not the same because they had counted different constituencies until they stopped counting. Therefore, both camps have hoped for victory right up until the result was announced today. In Kisumu, many gathered to find out the election results. Odinga has many of his supporters here. Photo: BAZ RATNER / Reuters This election was the fifth time Raila Odinga tried to become president of Kenya. The 77-year-old has also previously been involved in several presidential elections where he believes he lost due to cheating. In 2007, such debts led to widespread violence, and in the previous presidential election in 2017, Raila Odinga won through with his complaints. The result was annulled in 2017, but Odinga boycotted the new round of elections because he believed the electoral commission did not function well enough to be able to guarantee a free election. Several recent allegations of fraud Although international election observers have largely said that the election went well, there have also previously been accusations of fraud in the past week. The Secretary General of the Jubilee Party, which is the party of outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta, and the party that has stood behind Raila Odinga, has said that there has been extensive cheating. That’s what Reuters writes. They point the finger at William Ruto’s camp. General secretary of the party, Jeremiah Kioni, that “massive election rigging” has taken place and that the election was clearly “compromised”. Kioni believes it is cheating by bribing voters, influencing voters in the polling station, campaigning in the polling station, and incorrect use of election materials. No evidence has been presented for this, and the debts only came several days after election day, when the results were about to be published publicly. It is especially the results in the Central Kenya region that have led to allegations of cheating. This is an area where outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta has done strongly in the past, and where William Ruto has done surprisingly well this election. Would you like to read more about the two candidates, why Kenya has a history of electoral unrest and what challenges await the winner in a Kenya that is experiencing inflation, increasing national debt and drought. Read more here.
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Record-breaking election in Kenya marred by allegations of electoral fraud – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
