World

Voting Is Over in Kenya’s Election. Here’s What Comes Next


NAIROBI, Kenya – A wave of jubilation-tinged relief swept across Kenya on Tuesday as its bitterly contested presidential election went largely peacefully after months of fierce and muddled jostling. muddy. Supporters arrested one of the frontrunners, Raila Odinga, at his Nairobi stronghold, while his opponent, William Ruto, praised the majesty of democracy after voting before dawn. .

But when the voting is over, a new battle may begin.

The end of the polls has seen Kenya’s elections move into a new and unpredictable phase that, if previous polls are a guide, can be very difficult – a phase a stretch of highly political drama that in the past has involved vote-rigging allegations, lengthy courtrooms, street violence and, in 2017, a shocking murder mystery. .

It can take weeks, even months, before a new president is sworn in.

“People just don’t trust the system,” said Charles Owuiti, a factory manager, as he waited to vote in Nairobi, a stream of people running through a crowded schoolyard.

However, the corrosive ethnic politics that have framed previous elections has been dropped. In the Rift Valley, the scene of previous election conflicts, fewer people than in previous years had to flee their homes for fear they might be attacked.

Instead, Kenyans have flocked to polling stations across the country, some in the dark, to choose not only their president, but local MPs and leaders as well. Of the four candidates for the presidency, the vast majority of voters have chosen Mr Odinga, a 77-year-old opposition leader running for a fifth time, or Mr Ruto, the outgoing vice president and self-proclaimed self-proclaimed vice president. champion of Kenya’s “hustle nation” – its frustrated youth.

“Tortoise! Tortoise! Screaming young men crushed Mr Odinga’s car in Kibera, a suburb of Nairobi and believed to be Africa’s largest slum. They use his nickname, which means “father”. The septuagenarian leader struggled to hold on as he got caught up in a polling station.

Mr. Ruto showed obvious humility while voting. He told reporters: “Moments like these are when the mighty and powerful realize that ordinary and simple people make choices.

But for many Kenyans, it’s not an option worth making. The Electoral Commission estimates turnout at 60% of the country’s 22 million voters – a huge drop from the 80% turnout in 2017 and a sign of shows that many Kenyans, perhaps afflicted by economic hardship or affected by pervasive corruption, want to stay at Home.

Zena Atitala, an unemployed tech worker, outside a polling station in Kibera, said: “No matter what, there’s no hope. “Among the two candidates, we are choosing the better thief.”

Anger at the rising cost of living can be felt. Hit by the double punch of the pandemic and the Ukraine war, the Kenyan economy has been reeling from soaring food and fuel prices this year. The leaving government, led by President Uhuru Kenyatta, sought to ease the hardship with flour and gasoline subsidies. But it can barely afford them, due to Kenya’s huge debt to external lenders like China.

No matter who wins this election, they will face severe economic headwinds, economists say.

However, the key question in the coming days is not just who wins the race, but whether the loser will accept defeat.

It can become murky.

Days before the final vote, in 2017, a senior election official, Chris Msando, brutally murdered, his tortured body was dumped in a forest outside Nairobi with his girlfriend, Carol Ngumbu. One found after an autopsy they were strangled.

The death of Mr. Msando, the man in charge of the results transmission system, immediately raised suspicions of a vote rigging link. Weeks later, when Mr. Odinga challenged the election results in court, he claimed that the election commission’s server Was attacked by users of Mr. login credentials. Msando.

The election was eventually re-organized – Mr. Kenyatta won – but the murders were never solved.

However, the outcome of Kenya’s elections came in 2007 when a dispute over the outcome plunged the country into a months-long crisis of ethnic violence, which killed more than 1,200 people and , some analysts said, almost put the country in a state of exhaustion. Civil war.

In one infamous episode, a mob set fire to a church outside the town of Eldoret, burning to death the women, children, and elderly people hiding inside.

The pain of those days still causes voters like Jane Njoki to wake up Tuesday in Nakuru, 100 miles northwest of Nairobi, with mixed feelings about their vote.

Her family lost everything in 2007 after mobs of machete-wielding men flooded their town in the Rift Valley, burning their home and killing her brother and uncle Njoki, she said. Since then, each election season has been a reminder of how hastily her family held funerals in case attackers return.

“Elections are always in trouble,” she said.

That bloodshed caught the attention of the International Criminal Court, which unsuccessfully tried to indict high-profile politicians including Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto on charges of inciting violence. .

But the crisis also led Kenyans to adopt a new constitution in 2010, giving some power to the local level and helping to stabilize a democracy that, for all its flaws, is considered today. is one of the strongest democracies in the region.

Murithi Mutiga, Africa Program Director at the International Crisis Group, said: “Post-conflict societies rarely learn the right lesson, but I think Kenya has. “It adopted a new constitution with a relatively independent judiciary resulting in a more limited presidential term. The rest of the region can learn from it. “

On Tuesday, unofficial results from the vote poured in. Election Commission posted notices from polling stations on its website as they become available, allowing the press, political parties and other groups to aggregate unofficial results.

By midnight, the election commission’s website showed that 81% of 46,229 polling stations had submitted their results electronically. But those results have not been tabulated or verified against the original on paper, which analysts say could take days.

The winning candidate needs more than 50% of the vote, as well as a quarter of the vote in 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties. Failure to meet that bar means a flow within 30 days.

That could happen if the third candidate, George Wajackoyah – who is campaigning on the platform of legalizing marijuana and more unusually selling hyena testicles to Chinabelieved to have medicinal value – can convert his support into votes, rejecting a majority of the main candidates.

But analysts say the most likely outcome in the coming days is a court challenge.

Any citizen or group can challenge the results in the Supreme Court within seven days. If the results are contested, the court must issue its decision within two weeks. If the jury invalidates the result, as they did in 2017A new vote must be held within 60 days.

In recent weeks, both Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto have accused the electoral commission and other state agencies of bias, seemingly sowing the ground for a legal challenge – if they lose, of course. the.

Both main candidates have previously been accused of using street power to influence elections.

But most Kenyans desperately hope that the trauma of 2007 – or the grisly murder mystery of 2017 – is behind them.

Whatever happens in the coming days or weeks, many say they hope it will be resolved in court, not on the street.

Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi, Kenya, and Abdi Latif Dahir from Nakuru, Kenya.



Source link

news7f

News7F: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button