Kenya votes in fiercely contested election
Performance of country’s electoral commission could partly determine reaction to result amid fears of violence
Kenyans turned out in large numbers yesterday to vote in a tight, tense election pitting president Uhuru Kenyatta against challenger Raila Odinga.
Voters formed long lines before dawn to cast ballots in the tightly contested race for the presidency as well as for more than 1,800 positions, including governors, legislative representatives and county officials.
A key concern is whether Kenya will echo its 2013 election, a mostly peaceful affair despite opposition allegations of vote tampering, or the 2007 election, which led to violence fuelled by ethnic divisions that led to the deaths of more than 1,000 people.
“If the elections are not fair, if there was rigging, people will definitely go to the streets,” said Sophia Ajwang, 29, a student in Kisumu city.
But Moses Otieno, a 33-yearold businessman, said Kenyans desperately wanted to avoid another bout of election unrest.
“We’ve learnt a lot in the past so we don’t want such repetition in this election,” Mr Otieno said.
“That is why we will accept whatever outcome it is.”
Mr Kenyatta, 55, son of Kenya’s first president after independence from British rule, campaigned on a record of major infrastructure projects, many backed by China, and claimed strong economic growth.
Mr Odinga, 72, also the son of a leader of the independence struggle, has cast himself as a champion of the poor and a harsh critic of corruption.
Yet many voters are still expected to vote along ethnic lines.
Mr Kenyatta is widely seen as the candidate of the Kikuyu people, the country’s largest ethnic group. Mr Odinga is associated with the Luo bloc, which has never produced a head of state.
There are six other presidential candidates, although they lack the support of the top two.
“I feel positive because we ran a positive campaign,” said Mr Kenyatta, after voting in his birthplace of Gatundu, north of Nairobi. He urged Kenyans to vote peacefully and go home to await the results.
Mr Odinga voted in the poor area of Kibera, an opposition stronghold in the capital.
He urged supporters to gather tomorrow in a central park for what he predicted would be a celebration.
“Uhuru must go,” chanted some in the crowd.
More than 300 people, including Maasai draped in traditional red blankets, waited for hours in the dark before a polling station opened in the Rift Valley town of Il Bissil.
There were also long lines of voters in Mombasa.
In some areas, inmates in striped prison garb cast ballots under the watch of guards.
“There are a lot of people in line, and it is going to take some time, and we are going to need to be very patient,” said former US secretary of state John Kerry, who is in Kenya as chief election observer for the Carter Centre.
“But obviously, the transition from voting to counting is going to be critical and there is a process in place for that too.”
Reaction to the result could partly depend on the performance of Kenya’s electoral commission, which will collect vote counts from more than 40,000 polling stations.
Fears of violence were increased by the murder of an electoral official, days before the election.
The electoral commission has said about 25 per cent of polling stations would not have network coverage, meaning officials would have to move to find a better signal and transmit results by satellite phones.
By law, election officials have up to a week to announce results, although many analysts believe the outcome of the presidential race will be declared far sooner, possibly within one or two days.
The winner must get more than 50 per cent of the votes as well as one quarter or more votes in at least 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties.
If the front-runner falls short of those benchmarks, the two top contenders will face a runoff vote.
Kenya has about 20 million registered voters in a population of more than 40 million.
We’ve learnt a lot in the past, so we don’t want such repetition in this election ... we will accept whatever outcome it is