Kenya President, Uhuru Kenyatta has won the election but he has not won peace for Kenya
Kenyatta wins election, murders peace
Incumbent president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta has won the disputed presidential election, but he may not have won peace for the east African country.
Kenyatta took 98 percent of the total ballots cast. His closest rival, Raila Odinga pulled out of the process, citing high-handedness and corruption of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and called on his supporters to stay away from the election.
Kenyatta will have a hard time trying to bring peace back to Kenya. About 50 persons have been reported killed in several clashes relating to the election.
Chairman of the IEBC, Wafula Chebukati said Kenyatta received 7,483,895 votes to Odinga’s 73,228 — less than one percent of votes cast.
Out of 19.6 million registered voters, only 7.6 million ballots were cast. This indicates that Odinga’s supporters heeded his call to away from the election. But that the avoidance of the poll was not a subscription to peace.
This newspaper reported that Kenyatta would not have had his way if Odinga had not pulled out of the process. It could be recalled that Kenyatta’s winning margin—10 percentage points, or 1.4 million votes at the August election was relatively low. That was despite the rigging as pronounced by the Supreme Court. This goes to say that Odinga could have had better chances of winning the election at the rerun if he had not announced his pull- out.
Following the Supreme Court’s judgement on September 20th when Justice Philomena Mwilu said the election was “neither transparent nor verifiable.” And Chief Justice David Maraga said result verifications forms were incomplete and unsigned. Odinga, demanded more substantial reform at the IEBC and called on its Chairman Ezra Chiloba and other leaders to resign.
But Odinga’s demands did happen. Chiloba has refused to step down. The Kenya Jubilee party’s demand for amendments to election law, to de-emphasize the role of electronic ballots in vote tallies and require a recount when results are disputed, did not happen too.
However, a report says US Ambassador Robert Godec has called for peace “ in the coming days”.
“Leaders and politicians should clearly and publicly reject violence and work to keep the peace, and make every effort to ensure their supporters do so as well,” he said in a statement. “We are deeply concerned by reports of excessive use of force by the police.”