The electoral commission has declared Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, 55, the winner of Kenyan presidential election which took place on Tuesday. Kenyatta polled 54.27 per cent of the vote in Tuesday’s ballot to defeat his rival Mr Odinga who polled 44.74 per cent. Raila Odinga has come up short again in what was his fourth and probably last attempt to become the president of Kenya. Turnout was 79 per cent.
All the international observer groups, including the EU and the African Union, said the election passed smoothly but opposition candidate Raila Odinga, 72, has alleged that the results of Tuesday’s balloting were rigged and pledged not to accept them unless he was declared the winner. That stance has raised tensions, with Odinga’s followers burning tires in recent days in some of Nairobi’s slums and protesting in the western city of Kisumu.
Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, is a member of the Kukuyu ethnic group, which has dominated politics since Kenya’s independence from Britain in 1963. Odinga, his longtime political rival, belongs to the Luo tribe. Kenyatta was first elected in 2013.
Mr Kenyatta in his acceptance speech called on the opposition saying;
“Your neighbour will always be your neighbour and we cannot fight over an election. Let us shun violence and refuse to be used for short-term political gain which can only cause our country pain and grief … We have been neighbours, we are brothers, we are sisters … Kenya belongs to all of us.”
