Barring any changes or challenges to a final tally released early this morning, Uhuru will win the presidential vote with a razor-thin margin, ending a dramatic contest against the Prime Minister.
Following delays in tallying and verification, announcement of the final confirmed result of the March 4 presidential election was put off until 11am today. Updates to electoral figures at 2am, however, included the tally from the six constituencies whose results were still outstanding. They were Laikipia North, Emurua Dikirr, Molo, Konoin, Narok West and Turkana Central. Uhuru garnered 141, 447 to push his final tally to 6, 173, 433. Raila secured 58, 485 in the six constituencies to raise his final tally to 5, 340, 546.
If the figures stand, Uhuru will go over the constitutional threshold of 50 per cent plus one by a narrow margin of 4,100 votes. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission will make the official declaration of whether he has secured the vote at 11am after verification of the results by all parties.
Earlier, addressing the media at about 15 minutes past midnight, IEBC commissioner Yusuf Nzibo said the electoral body and political party agents needed more time to audit the results before a final declaration could be made.
At the Jubilee alliance’s tallying centre, however, last night had the air of a victory party after the gap in official results between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila peaked at over one million votes just after 10pm. While the lead shrank later in the evening, it mostly remained just above the 50 per cent threshold.
At 3am, with all 291 constituencies reporting, Uhuru had 6,173,433 valid votes (50.03 per cent) against Raila’s 5,340,546 (43.28 per cent). The Jubilee alliance and CORD candidates also had at least 25 per cent of the vote in about 30 counties each. Candidates were required to secure more than half the total votes cast, as well as at least a quarter of all votes in at least 24 counties to win.
Uhuru, 51, and running mate William Ruto, 46, took an early lead in the final manual tally to decide who was headed to State House. In a trend repeated from an earlier electronic tally that failed before it was completed, the two held onto their lead all day, rising and falling past the 50 per cent mark as ballot totals from various constituencies came in. Their thin margin above the constitutional threshold raised the dramatic prospect they might not secure a victory, forcing the contest to a run-off on April 11 this year. For the ‘true believers’ in Team UhuRuto, however, the presidency was almost in the bag.
Uhuru and Ruto have outperformed their rivals in a hard-fought election that opinion pollsters said was too close to call after they ate away at a sizeable lead held by Raila last year. Their hopes for a final result on Friday morning, after almost four days of contentious vote tallying, were dashed as questions about errors in the tallies led to fresh delays. Published figures that were provided to party agents for verification were alleged to have “missing or erroneous entries”. This prompted a decision to verify the numbers from all 291 constituencies afresh.
“There may have been errors and discrepancies here and there,” IEBC chief executive, Mr James Oswago told a media brief at the national tallying centre in Nairobi. “Some we have already detected and we are working on them.”
The election, the most complex ever attempted by Kenya, has been plagued by technology failures and protests from party agents. Earlier, CORD presidential agents complained that electoral officials had failed to include results from 11 constituencies in their final tally. The areas they say were left out include Changamwe, Ganze, Homa Bay, Kanduyi, Khamisi, Kitui South, Kitutu Chache, Kubuachai, Magarini, Mumias East and Vihiga. IEBC officials agreed to an audit of their documents to determine if this was true.
A last minute attempt by civil society activists to stop the process failed when the High Court in Nairobi ruled it had no jurisdiction to handle their petition. The petitioner, Africog, was advised to pursue their suit in the Supreme Court.
Two of the eight candidates in the race conceded defeat before the final result was announced. Eagle coalition candidate Peter Kenneth threw in the towel after interim results showed it was a two-horse race. UDF leader and Amani coalition candidate Musalia Mudavadi joined him Friday as the final tally continued to confirm this, announcing he was “ready to work with the winner”. He added he had spoken to Raila and Uhuru and requested then “not to allow any statements from within their ranks (about the election) that will be misconstrued and lead to a break-up of the prevailing civic order”.
Raila Odinga, who was following the contest from his home in Nairobi’s Karen area, plans to issue a statement today (Saturday) on the final result.
Uhuru and Ruto have won the largest number of voters nationally despite warnings from their rivals and some foreign envoys over the burden of the criminal charges they face in two cases at the International Criminal Court. There are six other candidates in the presidential race: Amani/UDF’s Mudavadi, 52, had 438,215 votes as at 3am today.
In fourth place was Peter Kenneth, 48, the Eagle/Kenya National Congress candidate who secured 72,786 votes. Former teacher Mohammed Dida, 39, who ran on an Alliance for Real Change ticket got 52,848 votes to take the fifth slot. Narc-Kenya’s Martha Karua, 55, followed with 43,881 votes.
In seventh place was Restore and Build Kenya candidate James ole Kiyiapi, 51, who polled 40,998 votes. Trailing the pack of eight was lawyer Paul Muite, 67, with 12,580 votes on a Safina party ticket.
source: standard Digital
