The election commission declared on Monday that William Ruto, the deputy president of Kenya, had won the presidency.
Ruto narrowly defeated experienced opposition figure and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who was running in his fifth election, with 50.49% of the vote. He will take office as Kenya’s fifth president since the country’s independence, having been elected on his first try. The Kenya First alliance, led by Ruto, has gained the second-highest number of members in the National Assembly and a majority in the Kenyan Senate.
The country’s electoral commission broke after four employees repudiated the results of the commission’s head Wafula Chebukati, causing the release of the result to be delayed for more than two hours past the deadline stipulated by the constitution. At a different location, the opposing officials held a press conference of their own to contest the official results. Juliana Cherera, vice chair of the IEBC, was one of several who objected to the findings but offered no proof of fraud.
Prior to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya’s announcement of the election results, Ruto’s opponent Odinga’s alliance also rejected them on Monday (IEBC). Outside the national election center in Nairobi, Saitabao Kanchory, the chief agent for Odinga, informed the media that they had not yet been able to compare the final results with their own tallies.
When the results were announced, Kanchory told reporters, “Once we see them, we want to check them, and when we verify them, we will be able to know and to tell the Kenyan people, because a result that is not verifiable is not a result.” Shortly after Odinga’s coalition rejected the results, the national tallying center briefly fell into anarchy, with fighting and chairs being thrown throughout the structure.
In his first speech following the election results, Ruto expressed gratitude to Kenyans for choosing him to be the nation’s next president. To Kenyans “who refused to be trapped in tribal cocoons,” he expressed his “thanks.” In addition, he complimented his rival and longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga, adding that “during the campaign, we dwelled on topics and attempted to sell an agenda to the people of Kenya.”
