NAIROBI (Reuters) – Raila Odinga, Kenya’s losing presidential candidate, said on Tuesday his coalition rejected the election result which saw incumbent Vice President William Ruto win the poll.
Raila Odinga, a historic figure in the opposition, promised to use legal means to contest the victory of his rival, who obtained 50.49% of the vote.
“Our point of view is that the figures announced by (the president of the electoral commission Wafula) Chebukati are null and void and must be annulled by a court,” said Raila Odinga, who was running for president for the fifth time, at a Nairobi press conference.
This first speech since the announcement of the results on Monday, six days after the vote was held, came a few minutes after four of the seven members of the electoral commission confirmed their decision taken the day before to disavow the result of the ballot, denouncing an “opaque” vote counting process.
Raila Odinga urged his supporters to stay calm and not take justice into their own hands as clashes erupted on Monday evening including Kisumu in the west of the country and the sprawling slum of Kibera, Nairobi, two strongholds of Raila Odinga .
These events raised fears of violence such as those observed in the past following disputed elections.
In 2017, more than 100 people died after the Supreme Court overturned the presidential result citing anomalies in the voting process. Ten years earlier, more than 1,200 people were killed in widespread post-election violence.
(George Obulutsa report, with Duncan Miriri; written by James Macharia Chege, French version Laetitia Volga, said by Matthieu Protard)
by George Obulutsa