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Tag: Raila Odinga

  • Kenya’s deputy president okays demands made by opposition

    Kenya’s deputy president okays demands made by opposition

    Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto said on Tuesday there would be no problem if the election board agrees to meet demands made by the opposition ahead of a repeat presidential vote on Oct. 26.

    The Supreme Court annulled an Aug. 8 vote at the start of September after opposition leader Raila Odinga challenged the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

    Odinga has withdrawn from the repeat poll, saying the election board had failed to meet a list of conditions his coalition said would guarantee fairness.

    He has called for daily protests to force the reforms.

    “If they (the election board) chose to have a discussion with our competitors with a view to firing this member of staff or firing that member of that staff or changing a supplier … so long as the elections are there, we will participate,” Ruto told reporters.

    Under the constitution, the repeat election must be held within 60 days of the Sept. 1 invalidation.

    Read:Kenya’s example

    The election board says it will to go ahead with the vote but Odinga’s withdrawal has caused concerns of a political crisis.

    Ruto accused Odinga of trying to spark chaos through the protests in order to get a negotiated settlement, which Kenyatta’s side was not prepared to accept.

    “It is a manufactured situation to achieve a political end and that is what we must resist,” he said.

    Odinga was looking for a way out of the election after realising he was not likely to win, Ruto said.

    “They wanted a repeat election, they have a repeat election. They don’t want to participate. What do they want?” he said.

    Read Also:Kenya’s presidential rerun holds October 26

     

  • Kenya: Raila Odinga rejects new election date

    Kenya: Raila Odinga rejects new election date

    …Kenyatta rebuffs demand

    Kenyan opposition leader, Raila Odinga said on Tuesday his coalition would not participate in the re-run of a presidential election proposed for Oct. 17 unless it is given “legal and constitutional” guarantees.

    Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta responded by saying there was nowhere in law that required the electoral body to consult Odinga.

    Related: Supreme Court nullifies Kenya’s presidential poll

    Odinga’s conditions for participating in the repeat presidential election include the removal of six officials at the election board.

    He called for criminal investigations to be opened against them.

    “You cannot do a mistake twice and expect to get different results.

    “A number of the officials of the commission should be sent home, some of them should be investigated for the heinous crimes they committed.”

    Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered on Friday that the Aug. 8 vote be re-run within 60 days, saying Kenyatta’s victory by 1.4 million votes was undermined by irregularities in the process.

    Kenyatta was not accused of any wrongdoing.

    The ruling, the first time in Africa that a court had overturned the re-election of a sitting president, was hailed by Odinga supporters as “historic”.

    Trending: Buhari, Nigerien President meet in Daura

    Analysts have said it is likely to lead to some short-term volatility in East Africa’s biggest economy but could build confidence in institutions in the longer-term.

    On Monday, the election board said it would hold new elections on Oct. 17, but Odinga said he wanted elections held on October 24 or 31 instead.

    “There will be no elections on Oct. 17 until the conditions that we have spelt out in the statement are met,” he said.

    Kenyatta rebuffed Odinga’s demands to the commission on the setting of the election date.

    Also Read: Kenya holds fresh presidential poll October 17

    “There is no legal requirement that Odinga be consulted. I was neither consulted. Kenya doesn’t belong to one man,” he said in a statement sent by his office.

    Odinga has lost the last three presidential elections. Each time, he said the vote was rigged against him.

    The opposition also plans to lodge 62 court cases contesting governorship, lawmaker, and local seats, spokeswoman Kathleen Openda said.

    At least 33 court cases were filed contesting election results before the presidential election was annulled, said Andrew Limo, spokesman for the election board.

    Others had been filed since but he did not have the updated figure.

    Limo said that the numbers had not yet reached the same level as during the 2013 elections, when the board received challenges to 189 results.

  • Odinga rejects poll results showing Kenyatta in lead

    Odinga rejects poll results showing Kenyatta in lead

    Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga rejected early results of a presidential election on Wednesday that showed he was losing to incumbent and long-time rival Uhuru Kenyatta.

    As of 0300 GMT, the election commission website put Kenyatta ahead by 55.1 per cent of votes counted to 44 per cent for Odinga, a margin of nearly 1.4 million ballots with more than 80 per cent of polling stations reported.

    Kenyatta, a 55-year-old businessman seeking a second five-year term, had held such a lead since the start of counting after Tuesday’s peaceful vote, the culmination of a hard-fought contest between the heads of Kenya’s two political dynasties.

    Odinga, a 72-year-old former political prisoner and self-described leftist, rejected the results as “fictitious”

    and “fake”, lashing out in a late night news conference at which he said his party’s own tally put him ahead.

    “We have our projections from our agents which show we are ahead by far,” Odinga said, questioning why published

    results were not accompanied by scanned copies of forms signed by all party agents in polling stations.

    Kenyan law states that where there is a discrepancy between a result on the website and the form, the result on

    the form will be considered final.

    Alleging vote-rigging, he also brought up the unsolved torture and murder of a top election official just over a

    week before the vote.

    “We fear this was exactly the reason Chris Msando was assassinated,” he said.

    Odinga’s comments carry ominous echoes of 2007 when he cried foul in an election marred by major irregularities.

    Around 1,200 people were killed in a campaign of ethnic violence that followed.

    Crimes against humanity charges brought by the International Criminal Court against Kenyatta and William Ruto, now his deputy, were withdrawn after witnesses died or disappeared.

    Odinga also ran and lost in 2013, but quelled potential clashes by taking his complaints about the widespread failure of electronic voting equipment to court.

    Many Odinga supporters said they believed their leader had been robbed of victory during the last two polls and vowed not to allow a third election to be stolen.

    “I will accept the outcome only if it’s credible,” said Odinga supporter Joseph Okuoch as he carefully watched vote tallying at his polling station in Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold in western Kenya.

    There were no signs of trouble in Kisumu as dawn started to break.

    The son of Kenya’s first vice-president, Odinga is an ethnic Luo in the west, an area that has long felt neglected by the central government and resentful of their perceived exclusion from power.

    Kenyatta, the son of the first president Jomo Kenyatta, is a Kikuyu, the ethnic group that has supplied three of the four presidents since independence from Britain in 1963.

    On Tuesday, Kenyatta called on whoever lost to concede the race.

    “In the event that they lose, let us accept the will of the people.

    “I am willing myself to accept the will of the people, so let them too,” Kenyatta said as he voted at the Mutomo Primary School in Gatundu, some 30 km north of the capital.

    Later, Odinga also told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle that he would also accept loss “in the unlikely  event that I lost fairly”.

    The winner needs one vote more than 50 per cent, and at least a quarter of the vote in 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties.

    In addition to a new president, Kenyans are electing lawmakers and local representatives, the result of a 2010 constitution that devolved power and money to the counties.

  • Kenyans in Rwanda voting for president smoothly

    Kenyans in Rwanda voting for president smoothly

    Kenyan nationals residing in Rwanda on Tuesday participated in general elections by casting their votes at the diplomatic mission in the capital city Kigali.

    The elections in Kenya are for the President, county governor, senator, Member of Parliament, woman representative and member of county assembly.

    The voters began arriving at the Kenyan High Commission in Kacyiru sector, Gasabo district as early as 6 a.m. where a polling station had been established.

    By 11 a.m., at least 100 people had cast their votes.

    Speaking to Xinhua, Catherine Koskey, the presiding officer for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) at the embassy said that there have been no incidents and voters woke up as early as 6 a.m. to exercise their rights.

    “We started at 6 a.m. and are hoping to close at 5 p.m. We are encouraging Kenyans living in Rwanda who are registered voters to hurry and vote before deadline,” she said.

    According to Koskey, about 850 Kenyans in Rwanda registered to vote at the Kenya High Commission in Kigali.

    The main presidential contest is between incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta, the flag bearer of Jubilee coalition and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, leader of the National Super Alliance (NASA).

    Also on the list of candidates are six other independent candidates.

    “I’m glad that Kenyans have turned up to vote and no incidents and violence.

    “I believe things will get better after this election. I pray for peaceful elections,” said Eugene Anangwe, a Kenyan journalist living in Rwanda.

  • UN, Obama urge peaceful polls in Kenya

    UN, Obama urge peaceful polls in Kenya

    Ahead of Tuesday Kenya’s presidential election, the UN and former U.S. president Barack Obama on Monday called for peaceful polls, urging respect for the outcome of the polls.

    The UN urged whoever is dissatisfied with the outcome of the polls to use legal channels to address grievances, according to Mr Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the secretary-general.

    “We urge the leadership of the various political parties to respect the outcome of the elections and to use the existing legal channels to address grievances.

    “We also call for impartial and human-rights compliant conduct of the police and security forces as a cornerstone of peaceful elections,” he said.

    Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, said there has been “too much incitement and appeals based on fear from all sides”.

    The former president warned that the Kenyan people “will be the losers if there is a descent into violence.”

    “I urge Kenyan leaders to reject violence and incitement; respect the will of the people; urge security forces to act professionally and neutrally; and work together no matter the outcome.

    “The choices you make in the coming days can either set Kenya back or bring it together,” Obama said.

    “As a friend of the Kenyan people, I urge you to work for a future defined not by fear and division, but by unity and hope” Obama added in a statement.

    Tuesday’s election has been predicted as a battle between incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta battling to secure a second five-year term and his opponent and long-time rival opposition leader Raila Odinga.

    Odinga alleged voting irregularities after losing to Kenyatta in the 2013 election and took his case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Kenyatta’s favour by saying the election was valid.

    Odinga was also a candidate in the 2007 election, which was followed by deadly violence fueled by ethnic rivalries.

    Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is among international observers who will be monitoring the election.

  • Kenya’s Supreme Court upholds Kenyatta’s poll victory

    Kenya’s Supreme Court upholds Kenyatta’s poll victory

    … Odinga accepts verdict
    Kenya’s Supreme Court ruled on Saturday Uhuru Kenyatta was elected president fairly, unanimously rejecting a challenge from defeated candidate Raila Odinga that the vote was marred by rigging and technical problems.

    Reuters reports that the decision cleared the way for Kenya’s richest man to take the top job in east Africa’s biggest economy, but left foreign powers with the headache of dealing with a leader charged with crimes against humanity at The Hague.

    Kenya’s outgoing president had called for calm ahead of the judgment which came five years after another ballot dispute triggered widespread bloodshed.

    “It is the decision of the court that the third and fourth respondents were validly elected,” Chief Justice Willy Mutunga said in court, referring to Kenyatta and his running mate and deputy president William Ruto.

    He said the court had done its duty at a historical moment.

    “It is now for the Kenyan people, their leaders, civil society, the private sector and the media to discharge (their duty), to ensure that the unity, peace, sovereignty and prosperity of the nation is preserved,” he added.

    After a week of hearings, the court had unanimously decided the March 4 vote was conducted in a free, fair and credible manner in line with the constitution, he said.

    Many ordinary Kenyans have insisted they will not allow a repeat of the violence that killed more than 1,200 people and hammered the economy following a dispute over the last election in 2007.

    Meanwhile, Odinga has accepted the ruling of the Supreme Court which dismissed his challenge to the presidential election result, and wished Kenyatta well.

    “The court has now spoken,” Odinga told a news conference. “I wish the president-elect, honourable Uhuru Kenyatta, and his team well.”

     

  • Kenya awaits presidential poll ruling

    Kenya awaits presidential poll ruling

     

    Kenya’s Supreme Court is set to announce its decision on a challenge to Uhuru Kenyatta’s election as president.

    The appeal was lodged by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Mr. Kenyatta’s main rival in the presidential poll this month.

    Official results said Mr. Kenyatta beat Mr. Odinga by 50.07 per cent to 43.28 per cent, avoiding a run-off by just 8,100 votes.

    The BBC says there is tight security at the Supreme Court. Violence after a disputed election in 2007 left more than 1,200 people dead.

    The presidential, legislative and municipal elections held on March 4 were the first since the 2007 poll.

    Mr. Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, are facing trial on charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly fuelling unrest after that election. They deny the charges.

    There is tight security around the Supreme Court in the capital, Nairobi, with all roads leading to the building closed.

    Police chief David Kimaiyo warned on Friday that unrest would not be tolerated.

    He said: “We have reports indicating that some parties have organised their supporters to converge outside the Supreme Court during delivery of the ruling, and we will not allow any such gatherings.

    “There will be tight security in all parts of the country, we will not tolerate any form of violence.”

    The Supreme Court can either confirm Mr. Kenyatta’s victory in this month’s vote, or overturn the result and call for a fresh election.

    The BBC reports from Nairobi that whatever the outcome, there will be people who will be angry.

    Outgoing President Mwai Kibaki has urged people to stay calm and accept the result, but much will depend on Kenyans’ faith in their newly reformed judiciary, the report adds.

     

  • Odinga challenges election results in Supreme Court

    Odinga challenges election results in Supreme Court

    Kenya’s defeated presidential contender Raila Odinga filed a legal challenge to his election loss on Saturday in a major test of the country’s democracy five years after a disputed vote triggered deadly tribal violence.

    Shortly before, police outside the Supreme Court used teargas to break up a rally of around 100 Odinga supporters, who were urged by the outgoing prime minister to stay calm and trust in the law to resolve his complaint.

    BBC reports that Odinga’s petition threatens to extend the period of uncertainty shadowing east Africa’s largest economy.

    The outgoing prime minister refuses to accept the slim first-round election win by Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court over the 2007 bloodletting in which more than 1,200 people were killed.

    The March 4 vote was largely peaceful by contrast, and Kenyatta declared it “free and fair” in his acceptance speech last Saturday, though he added that the electoral process could be made more refined and efficient in the future.

     

  • Kenyatta wins Kenyan presidential election

    Kenyatta wins Kenyan presidential election

    … Odinga will not ‘concede’ defeat

    Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s founding president, won the presidential election by the slimmest of margins with 50.03 percent, provisional results showed, just enough to avoid a run-off after a race that has divided the nation along tribal lines.

    Kenyatta faces trial for crimes against humanity.

    If he is declared president-elect by the election commission, which has still to announce the official result, Kenya will become the second African country after Sudan to have a sitting president indicted by the International Criminal Court, Reuters reports.

    In the early hours of Saturday joyous supporters of Kenyatta thronged the streets in his tribal strongholds, lighting fluorescent flares and waving tree branches and chanting “Uhuru, Uhuru,” television pictures showed.

    Kenyatta’s main rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, trailed with 43.28 percent of the vote. A close adviser to Odinga said he would not concede the election and would launch a legal challenge if Kenyatta was officially declared the victor.

    “He is not conceding the election. If Uhuru Kenyatta is announced president-elect then he will move to the courts immediately,” Salim Lone told Reuters, speaking on behalf of the prime minister.

    Odinga’s camp had said during tallying that the ballot count was deeply flawed and had called for it to be halted.

    To secure an outright win a candidate needed more than 50 percent of the votes. Kenyatta, the deputy prime minister, achieved that but with a margin of just 4,100 of the more than 12.3 million votes cast.

     

  • Kenyan poll: Odinga’s camp alleges vote tampering

    Kenyan poll: Odinga’s camp alleges vote tampering

    Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s supporters said they had “evidence’’ of vote tampering in Kenya’s general elections, as ballots continued to be counted on Thursday.

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that early results from the presidential race gave a lead to Odinga’s rival, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who is to face trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    Kalonzo Musyoka, Odinga’s vice presidential running mate, said vote tallying should be stopped as legal action was being considered.

    Computerised counting was halted this week after numerous failures to the electronic system. Instead, ballots were being physically brought from around the country to Nairobi to be counted manually.

    The major discrepancy between the provisional results based on the electronic system and the results from the manual recount are in the spoiled ballots, the number of which has significantly dropped.

    The election commission said it would include invalidated ballots in its count. This will increase the overall voter pool, thereby making it harder for Kenyatta to pass the 50-per-cent mark and avoid a run-off in April.

    But, with less spoiled votes, Odinga, who is trailing by about 10 percentage points, may have fewer chances of forcing a second round.

    “The results we have received have been doctored,’’ said Musyoka, as he urged his followers to maintain the peace. “This is not a call to mass action.’’

    This week’s general elections were the first since the post-election bloodshed of 2007 to 2008, during which more than 1,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.