Early signs show tight Kenyan presidential election

Preliminary results from Kenya’s presidential election showed a tight race between the two main candidates vying to replace President Uhuru Kenyatta, with citizens praying an announcement of a winner would not unleash violence as in years past.

Tuesday’s polls were largely peaceful, although police said they were pursuing a legislator who shot dead a rival’s aide outside a polling station. In the northern town of Eldas, where clashes prevented elections on Tuesday, polling stations opened peacefully on Wednesday, election officials said.

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The presidential frontrunners, Deputy President William Ruto and veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, are in a close race, results tabulated by the Kenyan media showed. The winning candidate must get 50% plus one vote.

Outgoing President Kenyatta, who has reached his two-term limit, fell out with Ruto after their re-election in 2017 and has endorsed Odinga.

“We are just praying for peace and a good leader,” said vegetable seller Crispin Wasonga in the capital.

More than 1,200 people were killed after a disputed 2007 poll and more than 100 after the 2017 poll.

The election commission, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), posted images showing results forms for more than 99 per cent of the 46,663 polling stations.

The commission only posts pictures, not numbers. Only seven out of 290 constituency-level results are available on the commission’s website. The constituency result forms have to be tallied at the site and then physically taken to the national tallying centre in the capital, Nairobi, and verified before the commission issues official results.

The cumbersome tallying process is partly the result of a Supreme Court ruling in 2017 that overturned the initial re-election of Kenyatta in August that year, citing the commission’s failure to follow the process to the letter. (REUTERS)