By Edward Acquah
Accra, Aug. 10, GNA- Kenyans are awaiting their next President after voting officially ended 1700 hours (14:00 hours GMT) Tuesday.
Voting has been extended in some areas where voting opened late due to delays in transportation of equipment to the affected polling stations and breakdown of identification kits.
Meanwhile, counting commenced at the polling stations after close of presidential polls with the country’s Electoral Commission expected to declare the presidential results in seven days.
The Electoral Commission said on Tuesday that only 200 out of more than 46,000 electronic fingerprints scanning kits broke down.
About 22 million Kenyans were eligible to vote in the exercise, which also elected a new parliament and local administrations.
Four candidates contested the presidential race, but Raila Amollo Odinga, a former Prime Minister, and William Samoei Ruto, the current Deputy President, are the frontrunners.
The other presidential candidates are: David Mwaure Waihiga, an ordained Reverend, and George Wajackoya, a former police intelligence officer.
With President Uhuru Kenyatta nearing the end of his second term in office, this year’s election appears to be a tight race.
During their respective campaigns, the two leading candidates promised to turn Kenya’s economy around and bring prosperity to the people.
Per Kenya’s electoral laws, a candidate requires more than half of all the votes cast across the country; at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in a minimum of 24 counties to win the presidential race in the first round.
The Electoral Commission assured ahead of the election that it would ensure a transparent, free, and fair process to avert any violence.
Kenya’s 2007 elections was characterised by weeks of violence following disagreements over the election results – leading to the death of an estimated 1, 200 people and about 600,000 also fled their homes.
Kenya’s Supreme Court annulled the results of the last election in 2017, ruling that the election was fraught with “illegalities and irregularities.”
The Court said the Electoral Commission did not comply with the law in its handling of the electronic transmission of the vote tallies from the polling stations.
Mr Odinga (the main opposition candidate at the time), whose petition was upheld by the Court, however, boycotted the re-run won by Mr Kenyatta.
To avert a repeat of 2017, the Electoral Commission said it had measures in place to ensure a transparent process.
Per the Commission’s guidelines, photos of the certified votes collated at the more than 40,000 polling stations would be sent to the constituency and national tallying centres – and the media, political parties, and civil society groups are allowed to conduct their own tallies using the certified results from the polling stations.
Nonetheless, the Electoral Commission has the mandate to declare the winner of the presidential election.
The two leading candidates
Mr Odinga, 77, is contesting the presidential election for the fifth time after four failed attempts.
He served as Prime Minister from 2008 to 2013 in the Unity Government created after post-election violence.
He is the son of Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga, a former Vice-President of Kenya.
In an interesting twist of events, Mr Odinga secured the support of President Kenyatta, his arch-rival, when he launched his fifth bid for Kenya’s presidency.
Mr Ruto, 55, on the other hand, has been Kenya’s Vice-President since 2013, but he fell out with his boss President Kenyatta.
He is contesting the presidential election for the first time.
Mr Ruto is a successful businessman and one of Kenya’s biggest maize farmers.
He worked as a street trader when he was a teenager – and he portrays himself as champion of the downtrodden.
In 2013, he was charged by the International Criminal Court over post-election violence – but the charges were later dropped.
GNA