Close result is controversial
Defeated Raila Odinga challenges election in Kenya
08/16/2022 11:33 p.m
William Ruto wins the presidential election in Kenya by less than two percentage points. However, part of the electoral commission refuses to recognize the result. There are irregularities. The loser in the election, Raila Ruto, is therefore challenging the outcome of the election.
One day after the results of Kenya’s presidential election were announced, electoral loser Raila Odinga announced that he would contest them. According to the Electoral Commission, the previous Vice President William Ruto won the vote on August 9 with 50.49 percent; Odinga received 48.85 percent of the votes.
The results announced are “null and void,” Odinga wrote on Twitter. At a press conference in the capital, Nairobi, he said: “In our view, there is neither a legitimately and validly declared winner nor an elect president.” He will exhaust “all available constitutional options” to have the result overturned in court.
Shortly before, four of the seven members of the Kenyan electoral commission had also refused to recognize the official election result. The deputy chairwoman of the electoral commission, Juliana Cherera, described the results as “absurd”. According to her, around 140,000 more votes were cast than there were registered voters. The sum of the votes would be 100.01 percent.
Cherera and three other colleagues stayed away from the announcement of the election results the day before. On Tuesday, local media also reported the killing of an election official responsible for counting votes in a Nairobi constituency.
Riots and violence in past elections
With around 54 million inhabitants, the country, which is popular with tourists, among other things because of safaris, is considered one of the most stable countries on the African continent. However, past elections have seen unrest and violence. In 2008 more than 1000 people died due to a wave of violence following the voting. Violent incidents also occurred in 2013 and 2017. The main reason was tensions between the different ethnic groups.
Election observers from the African Union and the East African Development Community (IGAD) did not find any irregularities during the vote. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to election winner Ruto and expressed his “admiration for the way [gebracht]how the Kenyans conducted these elections,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York. Guterres hopes the electoral process will be completed within the constitutional framework.