BREAKING: Incumbent Kenyatta Declared Winner of Kenyan Presidential Election
President Uhuru Kenyatta has been declared winner of the feisty 2017 Kenyan presidential election by the national electoral commission (the IEBC), defeating his fierce challenger Raila Odinga.
Just like in 2013, Kenyatta of the governing Jubilee Party once again beat rival Odinga, who this time contested as the leader of an opposition coalition, National Super Alliance (NASA) that voiced strong criticism over the way the ballots were collated following voting.
Despite putting the IEBC on spot, citing alleged hacking of the commission’s IT system, the electoral body stood its ground and went ahead with the announcement of the results after collating all the results.
Kenyatta, 55, was declared winner by the IEBC chairman and returning officer Wafula Chebukati at Bomas of Kenya after hours of anticipation of the official announcement.
Bomas, where much of the public focus had been since Tuesday’s voting, has been the national tallying centre in Nairobi.
After delivering his remarks, a dark suit-clad Chebukati came close to declaring the results, only to be cut short by IEBC commissioner Dr. Roselyn Akombe to remind him that the results had to be signed first by chief agents and IEBC commissioners, including Chebukati himself.
And once this formality was out of the way, the moment a nation had been waiting for finally came. First, Chebukati read out the presidential results by county, before declaring Uhuru Kenyatta the overall winner, accompanied by huge applause inside the packed hall.
President-elect Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s founding president Jomo Kenyatta, won with 54.27% of votes cast against Odinga’s 44.74%.
Six others also took part in the all-male presidential race but the main contest had always been poised to be a Kenyatta versus Odinga affair.
‘We won’t be part of the event’
Hours towards the announcement, NASA chief agent Musalia Mudavadi, flanked by coalition officials, told reporters at Bomas that they would not take part in the event, saying it was of no use since the IEBC had allegedly told them that it would only hear their concerns after the official release of the results.
NASA’s alternate chief agent James Orengo went on to claim that the IEBC “is part of the Executive” and that Jubilee had long known the outcome of the election.
After their address, the group drove off.
On Wednesday, Odinga (pictured) and co. claimed that the IEBC IT systems had been hacked and votes manipulated in favour of his rival Kenyatta. The announcement sparked off protests by Odinga’s supporters in some parts of the country and consequently clashes with police.
News agency AFP reported that four people were killed in these clashes, mainly in the opposition strongholds of Kisumu and Nairobi slums.
On Thursday, NASA demanded that the electoral commission declares their candidate, Odinga, the president-elect, sparking celebrations in the opposition strongholds.
International observers, in their preliminary reports, generally praised the election for being free and fair thus far.
On Friday, hours before the much-awaited announcement, NASA told a press conference their terms for concession of defeat.
They asked the IEBC to grant them and other candidates access to the IEBC servers, saying that they would accept the presidential result if indeed they have been defeated.
In the lead-up to the announcement of the final result, IEBC’s results portal, open to the public, showed Kenyatta well in the lead by more than one million votes.
Having first ascended to the helm in 2013, president-elect Kenyatta is now set for a second term in power.
This is the fourth time that his rival Odinga has given the presidency a shot, and it is as many times that he has been unsuccessful at it.
