Kenya electoral agency IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati has
declared the just-concluded repeat presidential election was credible,
free, fair and credible.
Mr Chebukati has subsequently
declare that Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto as
president-elect and deputy president-elect respectively.
Mr
Kenyatta garnered 98 per cent of the valid votes cast in the fresh
election held last week and which was boycotted by his main challenger,
Nasa’s Raila Odinga.
The declaration process started a
few minutes to 4pm with Mr Chebukati reading the votes that each
candidate got in each of the 47 counties.
The
declaration is made without results from 25 constituencies in Nyanza
that failed to vote on Thursday due to disruptions of polling.
Mr
Chebukati said that the conditions that had been set for the repeat
poll were met and that the fresh election credible, free and fair.
He described as the “most difficult and legally unchartered
waters” the fact that Kenya, first in Africa and the Commonwealth, and
only the fourth in the world, had its presidential election annulled and
a repeat poll done.
“I am satisfied that we were able
to meet these conditions (I had set) to deliver what to us, and I
believe, [to] observers, was a free, fair and credible election,” said
Mr Chebukati.
Detailed steps
He
said detailed steps were undertaken to ensure the election was okay and
to address concerns from General Election where the Supreme Court
annulled President Kenyatta’s win.
Mr Chebukati said that the election was run by a fresh team made of election staff from all over the country.
He added that conditions in 25 constituencies in western Nyanza region made it impossible to hold the repeat election.
Speaking
earlier in the day, IEBC Vice-Chairperson Consolata Nkatha said that
voting in areas that did not hold elections will not affect the final
result.
She said that a verification process had been
completed in 266 constituencies where elections were held and that the
commission, in accordance with Section 55(B)(3) of the Elections Act,
directed that a return to the election be made, thus paving way for a
president-elect to be declared.
Last Thursday’s fresh
election was ordered by the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling on
September 1 that annulled President Kenyatta’s August 8 win over
illegalities and irregularities committed by the IEBC.
Mr
Odinga boycotted the fresh poll, demanding, among other things, the
sacking of senior electoral officials and change of both the ballot
paper printer and the poll’s technology provider.
Nyanza
However,
it became impossible to hold elections in 25 constituencies in Kisumu,
Siaya, Homa Bay and Migori, where Mr Odinga enjoys massive support.
In
most of these constituencies, hooligans prevented polling from taking
place, welding and riveting shut gates in some places and in others
engaging in violence to the extent that the IEBC could not secure its
officials.
Mr Chebukati said on Friday that election
officials were intimidated, kidnapped or tortured and said that where
the commission’s staff was under threat, it was concerned.
However,
election took place in 265 of Kenya’s 290 constituencies as well as the
diaspora with Kenyans in East and South Africa casting their ballot.
Of
those 266 reporting constituencies, President Kenyatta had 7,483, 895
votes, just 719,395 shy of the 8,203, 290 he had in the annulled poll.
And
with 7,616, 21 valid votes in the 266 constituencies that voted, the
voter turnout was 42.36 per cent, while taken against the 19, 611, 423
total voters in Kenya, the Thursday fresh poll’s turnout drops to 38.84
per cent.
The August 8 election had a 79.17 per cent
voter turnout, a drop from the 86 per cent in the 2013 election won by
President Kenyatta with Mr Odinga coming in a close second, and losing a
subsequent Supreme Court petition.
Additional report by John Ngirachu – Daily Nation
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