Kenya’s Ruto declared president as some election officials disown results | CBC News

After last-minute chaos that could foreshadow a court challenge, Kenya’s electoral commission chairman on Monday declared Deputy President William Ruto the winner of the close presidential election over five-time contender Raila Odinga.

It was a triumph for Ruto, who shook up politics by appealing to struggling Kenyans on economic terms and not on traditional ethnic ones.

Ruto received 50.49 per cent of the votes, or more than 7.1 million ballots, electoral chairman Wafula Chebukati said, while Odinga received 48.85 per cent in last Tuesday’s peaceful election.

But just before the declaration, four of the seven electoral commissioners told journalists they could not support the “opaque nature” of the final phase of the vote verification process.

“We cannot take ownership of the result that is going to be announced,” vice-chair Juliana Cherera said, without giving details.

At the declaration venue, police moved to impose calm amid shouting and scuffles before Chebukati announced the official results. He later said that the two commissioners who stayed behind with him had been injured.

Odinga’s campaign alleged that unspecified “electoral offences” were committed and that a winner was illegally declared without a quorum of commissioners.

“It is not over until it is over,” Odinga’s running mate, Martha Karua, a former justice minister, tweeted.

Crowds of people across Kenya exploded in jubilation in some places, and in anger in others.

Odinga supporters shouted “No Raila, no peace!” and burned tires in the crowded Nairobi neighbourhood of Kibera as night fell. Religious leaders pleaded for calm.

7 days to challenge results

Odinga’s campaign has seven days to file a challenge in court, extending the uncertainty in Kenya, a country of 56 million people that is seen as crucial to regional stability. The Supreme Court will have 14 days to rule.

This is likely the final try for the 77-year-old longtime opposition figure, who was backed this time by former rival and outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta. Keyatta had fallen out with Ruto, his deputy, years ago.

Ruto told reporters that the divisions among the electoral commissioners were just a “sideshow” and “pose no threat at all to the legality of the declaration.”

“What happened this evening is an unfortunate situation, I think an attempt by our competitors to roll back what we have achieved as a country,” Ruto said.

He praised an election that for many Kenyans represented a leap forward in transparency and peace, largely free from ethnic divisions that in the past played out with deadly results.

He added that people who had acted against his campaign “have nothing to fear.… There is no room for vengeance.”

Ruto, 55, portrayed himself during the campaign as the brash outsider, playing up his chicken-selling days from childhood. He told voters the election was a contest between “hustlers” from modest backgrounds and the “dynasties” of Kenyatta and Odinga, whose fathers were Kenya’s first president and vice-president.

The message was popular among many Kenyans struggling with rising prices, few job opportunities and widespread corruption.

Economic troubles

Turnout in this election had dropped to 65 per cent, reflecting the weariness of Kenyans seeing the same longtime political figures on the ballot and frustration with poor economic conditions in East Africa’s economic hub. At the top, Kenyan politics are often marked less by ideological platforms than by alliances that create a path to power and the wealth that can come with it.

Some Kenyans also appeared wary after the Supreme Court earlier this year blocked an attempt by Kenyatta to make major changes to the constitution that would, among other things, create a prime minister post that some feared Kenyatta would fill if Odinga won.

Odinga, famous for his years-long detention while fighting for multiparty democracy decades ago and for supporting Kenya’s groundbreaking 2010 constitution, now appeared to many Kenyans as part of the establishment for backing the proposed constitutional changes.

Appeals for peace

The electoral commission improved its transparency in this election, practically inviting Kenyans to do the tallying themselves by posting online the more than 46,000 results forms from around the country. For the first time, the public could follow the election as sometimes skittish local media houses, and even individuals, compiled and shared findings as a check on the official process. Such counts showed Ruto ahead.

As Kenyans waited for almost a week for official results, both Odinga and Ruto appealed for peace, echoing calls by police, civil society groups and religious leaders in a country where past elections have been marked by political violence.

After the 2007 vote, more than 1,000 people were killed after Odinga claimed victory had been stolen from him in an election widely seen as compromised. Ruto, then Odinga’s ally, was indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for his role in the violence, but the case was terminated amid allegations of witness intimidation.

After the 2017 election results were overturned by the high court for irregularities, a first in Africa, Odinga boycotted the fresh vote that Kenyatta won and declared himself the “people’s president” in a ceremony that led to accusations of treason. Following unrest in which dozens were killed, Odinga and Kenyatta publicly shook hands to establish calm.