Uhuru Kenyatta wins Kenya’s polls

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has been declared winner of the 2017 presidential election, wining a second term in office.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati announced the final results on Friday in the capital Nairobi.

“Uhuru Kenyatta garnered 8,203,290 votes representing 54.27 per cent of votes. He has attained 25 per cent in 35 counties,” Chebukati confirmed.

Kenyatta beat veteran politician and candidate of the National Super Alliance (NASA) party Raila Odinga who garnered over 6.7 million votes (44.74%).

Odinga has earlier disputed provisional results displayed on the IEBC website which placed Kenyatta in the lead. He described it as fraudulent and a machination of hackers.

NASA said on Thursday that Odinga, who contested for the fourth time, was in the lead per some unsubstantiated results they claim were from the IEBC servers. They demanded that Odinga be declared president.

The IEBC maintained that there was no hack in their system and they will declare the winner of the election only after they verified and validated all the results directly from the polling stations.

Protests erupted in parts of the country after Odinga’s press conference a day after the election when he announced the alleged hacking.

Four people died during the protests that were swiftly contained by the police who used tear gas.

The nine election observer missions in the country said the elections were free, fair and transparent and called on Odinga to stop making statements that could incite the public.

They also directed him to resort to the courts with all his grievances.

Swearing-in of the president-elect is scheduled for 29 August and the opposition has until 22 August to file a petition at the Supreme Court. However, Odinga has vowed not to go to court over the election.

Adira Kallo