Nairobi, Kenya –
Kenyan opposition figure Raila Odinga said Tuesday that she will contest the results of the closely contested presidential election with “all legal options” after Vice President William Ruto was declared the winner, bringing new uncertainty to a country where the vote was widely considered the most voted. peaceful.
Now, East Africa’s most stable democracy faces weeks of wrangling and the possibility of the Supreme Court ordering new elections. Religious and other leaders have already called for calm in a country with a history of deadly post-election violence.
“Let no one take justice into their own hands,” Odinga told his supporters.
This was his first appearance since the chairman of Kenya’s electoral commission on Monday declared Ruto the winner with almost 50.5% of the vote. Four of the seven commissioners abruptly announced that they could not support the results, and Odinga’s supporters brawled with the remaining commissioners at the declaration site.
Shortly before Odinga spoke, the four commissioners assured reporters that the president’s final math added up to 100.01% and that excess votes would have made a “significant difference.” They also said that he did not give them a chance to discuss the results before his statement.
“What we saw yesterday was a travesty and blatant disregard for the constitution,” Odinga said, calling the election results “null and void.”
Odinga, 77, has pursued the presidency for a quarter of a century. His campaign has seven days after Monday’s statement to file a petition with the Supreme Court, which would then have 14 days to rule.
The electoral commission had been widely considered to have improved its transparency in this election, virtually inviting Kenyans to do the counting themselves by posting online the more than 46,000 result forms from across the country.
On Tuesday, the local Election Observation Group announced that its highly respected parallel vote count “corroborates the official results” in an important check on the process.
But Odinga claimed that only the president of the electoral commission could see the final results before the declaration. “The law does not give the president dictatorial powers,” he said, insisting that the commission’s decisions must be made by consensus.
Odinga’s campaign had hoped for victory after outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a political turn, endorsed his former rival Odinga instead of his own vice president.
Ruto, 55, appealed to Kenyans in making the choice over economic and non-ethnic differences that have long marked the country’s politics with sometimes deadly results. He portrayed himself as an outsider from humble beginnings who challenged the political dynasties of Kenyatta and Odinga, whose parents were Kenya’s first president and vice president.
Still, turnout in last Tuesday’s vote fell to 65% as the 56 million Kenyans across the country expressed frustration and lack of confidence that the candidates would address issues of rising prices, high unemployment and corruption. widespread. Ruto himself, now wealthy, has faced and denied multiple accusations of land grabbing and other bribery.
As a growing number of African leaders issued statements congratulating Ruto, Kenya’s outgoing president remained silent.