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Uhuru Kenyatta wins Kenyan election by slimmest margin
Kenyatta, the son of
Kenya’s founding president, faces trial after the disputed 2007 presidential
vote that unleashed a wave of tribal blood-letting.
With
the 51-year-old in the top job, Kenya will become the second African country
after Sudan to have a sitting president indicted by the International Criminal
Court.
The United States and
other Western powers, big donors to the east African nation, said before the
vote that a Kenyatta win would complicate diplomatic ties with a nation viewed
as a vital ally in the regional battle against militant Islam.
After saying Kenyatta
secured 50.07 per cent of the votes, just achieving the more than 50 per cent
needed to avoid a second round, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission, Issack Hassan, announced:
“I therefore declare
Uhuru Kenyatta the duly elected president of the Republic of Kenya,” he said.
Shortly afterward he handed a certificate of the results to Kenyatta, who had
arrived after the declaration. Kenyatta thanked him.
Many in the election
centre cheered, although celebrations started in the early hours of Saturday
after provisional results showed Kenyatta’s victory. Supporters thronged the
streets of Nairobi and his tribal strongholds, lighting fluorescent flares and
waving tree branches and chanting “Uhuru, Uhuru.”
The mood was tense but
calm in the heartlands of Kenyatta’s rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who
also lost in the disputed 2007 vote and trailed this time with 43.3 per cent.
“No Raila, no peace,”
Odinga supporters chanted as security forces stood by in Kisumu, a city where
violence flared in 2007.
Speaking before the
formal declaration, a close adviser to Odinga said his candidate would
challenge the result if Kenyatta was declared winner.
“He is not conceding the
election,” Salim Lone said, speaking on behalf of Odinga. “If Uhuru Kenyatta is
announced president-elect then he will move to the courts immediately.”
Odinga’s camp had said
during tallying that the ballot count was deeply flawed and had called for it
to be halted. But they promised to pursue any disputes in the courts not the
streets.
The election commission,
plagued by technical problems that slowed the count, took five days to announce
the result.
International observers
broadly said the vote and count had been transparent so far and the electoral
commission, which replaced an old, discredited body, promised a credible vote.
Kenyatta, the deputy
prime minister, achieved the 50 per cent mark by a tiny margin of about 8,400
votes out of the more than 12.3 million that were cast.
Both sides relied
heavily on their ethnic groups in a nation where tribal loyalties mostly trump
ideology at the ballot box. Kenyatta is a Kikuyu, the biggest of Kenya’s many
tribes, Odinga is a Luo. Both had running mates from other tribes.
John Githongo, a former
senior government official-turned-whistleblower, urged the rival coalitions,
Odinga’s CORD and Kenyatta’s Jubilee, to ensure calm. “Jubilee and CORD, what
you and your supporters say now determines continued peace and stability in
Kenya. We are watching you!” he said on Twitter.
How Western capitals
deal with Kenya under Kenyatta and the extent they would be ready to work with
his government will depend heavily on whether Kenyatta and his running mate
William Ruto, who is also indicted, cooperate with the tribunal.
“It won’t be a headache
as long as he cooperates with the ICC,” said one Western diplomat. “We respect
the decision of the majority of the Kenyan voters.”
Both Kenyatta and Ruto
deny the charges and have said they will work to clear their names, though
Kenyatta had to fend off jibes during the campaign by Odinga that he would have
to run government by Skype from The Hague.
“Until now, Kenyatta has
been co-operating with the court and we do hope this will continue,” said Fadi
El-Abdallah, spokesman for the Hague-based court. “This is part of Kenya respecting
its legal obligations under international law.”
Kenyans hope the vote,
which has so far passed off with only pockets of unrest on voting day, would
restore their nation’s reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies
after killings last time left more than 1,200 dead.
Many Kenyans have said
they are determined to avoid a repeat of the post-2007 chaos that brought the
economy to a halt.
Church leaders in
Kisumu, in the west of Kenya that was devastated five years ago, sought to
defuse tension this time.
“Our vote was stolen and
we’re angry,” said Denis Onyango, a 28-year-old mechanic, as hundreds of Odinga
supporters gathered with members of the security forces nearby. “Why did they
bring such huge security here if the vote was to be free and fair.”
Some said it was time to
move on. “I urge our candidate to forget the presidency and let the will of God
prevail,” said cloth vendor Diana Ndonga.
Many shops stayed closed
as a precaution in the port city of Mombasa, another Odinga stronghold, but streets
were calm.
“We are heading for a
bleak future where the economy goes down and international relation sour
because of the ICC case,” said Athumani Yeya, 45, a teacher in the city.
Others were hopeful that
Kenyatta could bring change.
“We are celebrating.
Even with the ICC case in Holland, the people of Kenya still have faith in
him,” said Thomas Gitau, 25, a bare-foot car washer on a main Mombasa street.
“We hope he can fix infrastructure and security so we have more jobs.”
Odinga’s camp had said
even before the result that they were considering a court challenge. In 2007,
he said the courts could not be trusted to handle the case. Kenyatta’s camp had
also complained about counting delays and other aspects of the vote.
But many Kenyans said
this race was more transparent. Turnout reached 86 per cent of the 14.3 million
eligible voters.
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