Kenya’s long, slow presidential election concluded on Monday, with anti-China candidate William Ruto declared the winner by 50.5 percent to 49 percent against Raila Odinga, chosen candidate of outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Ruto’s win barely cleared the margin necessary to avoid a runoff against Odinga, who refused to concede. On Tuesday, Odinga declared the election “null and void.”
The Economist impishly noted this fits the pattern of the past quarter-century of Kenyan elections, in which the candidate who rejects the outcome after suffering a narrow defeat has always been the same person, namely Raila Odinga.
In this case, Odinga rejected the outcome after four of the seven members of Kenya’s election commission said the final count added up to 100.01 percent of the total vote and the phantom excess votes were enough to make a “significant difference” in the close race.
“We cannot take ownership of the result that is going to be announced because of the opaque nature of this last phase of the general election,” electoral commission vice-chairwoman Juliana Cherera stated.
The chairman of the commission, Wafula Chebukati, said he was proud to do his “duty according to the laws of the land” and announce the winner despite “intimidation and harassment.”
Pandemonium erupted after Chebukati declared the results, with members of the crowd jumping on stage, overturning the lectern, destroying banners, and attacking the election commissioners. Chebukati himself was assaulted by a Kenyan senator who was attending the announcement.
“We have walked the journey of ensuring that Kenyans get a free, fair and credible election. It has not been an easy journey – right now two of my commissioners and the CEO are injured,” he said.
“What we saw yesterday was a travesty and blatant disregard of the constitution,” Odinga thundered.
Odinga’s supporters held angry protests in several cities on Monday night, with vandalism and at least one fatality reported when a mob flipped over a woman’s car, but by Tuesday calm had been largely restored.
“We totally without reservation reject the presidential election results,” Odinga said, declaring the results announced by Chebukati to be “null and void.”
“He could have plunged the country into chaos. Such impunity can be a threat to security. It is not up to us to determine whether Chebukati has committed illegality,” Odinga said.
Odinga’s reaction shattered early hopes that Kenya’s 2022 presidential election would be the most peaceful and transparent in recent history. The vote count was extremely slow and methodical, with raw data continually published by the election commission so media organizations and individual citizens could maintain their own tallies.
Reuters reported Kenyans wearily bracing for a long legal battle over the election results, while African diplomats, the United Nations, and the U.S. embassy pressured Odinga to accept the outcome and withdraw his challenge. Odinga’s fiery statement on Tuesday appeared to be a rejection of those pleas.
Ruto, who ran on a populist platform that stressed his humble origins and Christian faith, and included pledges to reduce China’s economic influence in Kenya, gave an upbeat victory speech on Monday in which he said he hailed Chebukati as a “hero” and dismissed the criticism of the four dissenting electoral commissioners as a “sideshow.”
Ruto’s supporters grumbled that the four dissenting commissioners were appointed as a group by President Kenyatta, who threw his support behind Odinga. Ruto argued the four “pose no threat at all to the legality of the declaration” because Chebukati had the sole authority to make it.
“I have been prayed into victory. We were working against the odds, but I must confess it is God. I want to thank members of my team starting with my wife and family and many other prayer warriors in Kenya,” Ruto said.
“I want to promise the people of Kenya that I will run a democratic government and I will work with the opposition to the extent that they oversight the government,” he pledged.
“To those who have done many things against us, I want to tell them there’s nothing to fear. There will be no vengeance. We do not have the luxury to look back,” he added.
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