Tag Archives: IEBC

The latest on Kenya’s election results: IEBC targets Friday finale

March 6, 2013 Kevin Lees Leave a comment

Issack Hassan, the chairman of Kenya’s Independent Boundaries and Elections Commission (pictured above) has now given a briefing on the state of Kenya’s less-than-optimal vote-counting process.

The IEBC’s automatic electronic updates had slowed to a crawl on the second full day after Monday’s election, and Hassan admitted that the results have not been announced as rapidly as Kenyans have expected amid multiple technical glitches.

Hassan stated that the IEBC would abandon the electronic process in favor of manual counting, and rather defensively called on all of the parties and candidates to be patient, to allow the IEBC to do its work and not to escalate tensions.

“We want to plead with the political parties… and the presidential candidates and their agents to remember the code of conduct and allow the Commission to do its work.”

Earlier in the day, the IEBC announced final results from Kenyans abroad — Raila Odinga won 1224 votes to 951 for Uhuru Kenyatta.

By law, the IEBC must announce results within seven days, so a Friday announcement is not necessarily a failure under Kenya’s election law.

But given that the 2007 elections were followed by delays — especially, like this time, by an initial partial release of results from Mount Kenya and Kikuyu strongholds, to the exclusion of the coastal and western provinces where Odinga ran strongest in 2007 — and is expected to run in 2013 — have only made the past 48 hours even more tense.

In addition, the presence of a high amount of spoiled votes (up to 7% of the total previously announced in the electronic tally), and the IEBC’s decision that such votes will ‘count’ toward whether a candidate has won a 50% ‘absolute majority’ has been met with jeers from Kenyatta’s Jubilee alliance.

Kenya

What we know so far about the Kenyan election results

March 5, 2013 Kevin Lees 3 Comments

It’s been over 24 hours since polls closed in Kenya’s general election, and vote counting has progressed very slowly — at this point, with midnight approaching in Nairobi, the chief elections commission has announced that because of counting delays, a preliminary announcement will not be made until tomorrow.

What do we know so far?

We don’t know who will be the next president of Kenya, unfortunately, because we don’t have enough results yet — just 13,559 districts out of 31,982 have been counted, and that’s just under 42% of all districts, according to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

Uhuru Kenyatta, former finance minister and the candidate of the Kikuyu-strong Jubilee alliance, currently leads the provisional result with 53%, with prime minister Raila Odinga, the runner-up of the controversial 2007 presidential election and the candidate of the Luo-strong Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) alliance winning 42%. The margin for Kenyatta has gone done significantly over the past few hours, though, and there’s a general understanding that the results do not include as many of Odinga’s strongholds in the west and along the coast.

Musalia Mudavadi, deputy prime minister and the candidate of the candidate of the Amani coalition, which includes many supporters from the Luhya people and the once-dominant Kenya African National Union (KANU), was far behind in third place with just 3%.

One troubling issue is the high number of rejected votes — running at 330,000, that’s more than half the votes that Mudavadi is currently winning and about 7% of the vote. That could mean up to half a million voters or more when the final results are in — perhaps even the margin of victory — will be rejected. As a winning presidential candidate must take a 50% absolute majority, that means that Kenyatta or Odinga will need to win closer to 53% of the non-rejected ballots in order to avoid a runoff.

CORD leaders, such as vice presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka, cautioned that the results are incomplete and that Kenyatta’s lead is not a reliable gauge of where the race stands:

“It is important that we await the outcome of the remaining two thirds of the polling stations in order to make any conclusion about the results of this election,” Kalonzo said.

While urging for calm, the VP said in any case, results from Cord strongholds were yet to trickle in adding that results from their stronghold stood at about 10 percent while those of Jubilee were average of 40 percent.

Kalonzo taunted the Jubilee rivals for what he termed as premature celebrations while exuding confidence that their coalition will pull a comeback and stage their rivals lead once results from their strongholds are recorded.

Peter Kenneth, who was leading the Eagle coalition, has conceded defeat having received just 1% of the vote, but cautioned that the independent numbers being reports do not currently match what the IEBC is reporting:

Kenneth urged the electoral body to clear presidential results saying results they were getting from their field agents were different from what IEBC has.

“The country cannot get out of anxiety mood we are heading to. We are getting real time results that differ with IEBC”, said Kenneth.

Due to the fact that there are high regional differences, however, it seems likely that the IEBC’s numbers will ultimately tighten, which would be consistent with pre-election polls and any divergent alternative tallies.

Currently, Odinga leads in 26 counties and Kenyatta leads in 21 counties. (I don’t know what that means for parliamentary results, necessarily, even though results for both the National Assembly and the newly formed Senate are coming in as well).

What else do the results tell us?

Continue reading What we know so far about the Kenyan election results →

Kenya

In Depth: Kenya

March 3, 2013 Kevin Lees 1 Comment

Kenya — a country of 41 million people in east Africa — widely seen as a relatively stable hub for international actors in the east African region will go to the polls on March 4, 2013, to select a new president and the members of Kenya’s newly redesigned parliament.

The most high-profile race is the one to replace Kenya’s third president since independence, Mwai Kibaki, who is stepping down after his election in 2002 and his controversial reelection in 2007, widely seen as a fraudulent victory and a catalyst for political violence that lasted for two months following the 2007 election.

The two leading candidates are Uhuru Kenyatta, a former finance minister and the son of Jomo Kenyatta, the country’s first president, and Raila Odinga, the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first prime minister. Odinga (the son) narrowly lost — officially, at least — the 2007 election to Kibaki, and since a 2008 power-sharing deal with Kibaki, has served as prime minister.

Kenyatta leads an alliance of parties known as the Jubilee alliance, which is dominated by members of Kenyatta’s own Kikuyu ethnic group, the largest in Kenya (17%) and the Kalenjin people. Odinga leads the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) alliance, comprised in turn of Odinga’s own Luo people, as well as the Kamba people.

The key issues in the race have involved corruption, Kenya’s somewhat lackluster economic growth and unemployment, the indictment of Kenyatta (and his running mate, William Ruto) for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court springing from the 2007-08 political violence, the ongoing devolution of power from the central government to Kenya’s eight provinces and 47 counties, and the progress of land reform resulting from the Independent Land Commission established by the 2010 constitution.

Six other candidates are contesting the race, although none of them receive more than single digits in polls. They include:

Musalia Mudavadi, deputy prime minister, a former vice president, former running mate of Kenyatta in 2002 and a former running mate of Odinga in 2007, who is running as the candidate of the Amani coalition, which includes many supporters from the Luhya people and the once-dominant Kenya African National Union (KANU), and Mudavadi has the support of former president Daniel arap Moi, who served from 1978 to 2002.
Peter Kenneth, an MP who is running as the candidate of the Eagle Alliance, and is running on an explicitly national basis (i.e., not on the basis of a particular ethnic group).
Martha Karua, an anti-corruption MP and a former minister of justice.
Mohammed Abdula Dida, a high school teacher known mostly for his folksy one-liners in Kenya’s two presidential debates.
James ole Kiyiapi, a former permanent secretary in the ministries of education and local government.
Paul Muite, a former MP.

Under new election rules resulting from a new constitution promulgated in 2010, a presidential candidate must win in excess of 50% of the vote and win 25% of the vote in at least 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties. If neither condition is met, the two candidates will face off in a runoff to be held on April 11.

Kenya’s parliament is also gaining a house after the 2010 constitutional reforms — the formerly unicameral National Assembly will remain as the lower house, while the new Senate will become the parliament’s upper house.

The National Assembly, formerly consisting of 224 members, will now have 350 members, 290 of which are directly elected in single-member districts and 47 of which must be women (one in each Kenyan county).

Kenyans will elect members of the Senate for the first time ever on March 4 as well — it’s expected that there will be 68 senators, one elected in each of the 47 counties, with 16 additional special representatives for women, two representatives for youth and two representatives for persons with disabilities.

Currently, the largest bloc in the National Assembly is the Odinga-led Orange Democratic Movement (100 seats), followed by Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (43 seats), though because of the transient nature of many Kenyan political parties and movements, it’s uncertain whether pro-Kenyatta or pro-Odinga forces will actually win the new elections for the National Assembly and the Senate.

See below Suffragio‘s coverage of the Kenyan races:

Kenyan Supreme Court upholds Kenyatta victory
March 30, 2013

Uhuru Kenyatta is the next president of Kenya
March 8, 2013

Tense Thursday finds both Uhuru, Raila under 50% in Kenya election results
March 7, 2013

The latest on Kenya’s election results: IEBC targets Friday finale
March 6, 2013

What we know so far about the Kenyan election results
March 5, 2013

Could Kenya enter another period of power-sharing after its general election?
March 4, 2013

Mudavadi likely to become kingmaker in Kenya’s presidential runoff
March 3, 2013

Five reasons why Kenya is unlikely to repeat 2007’s post-election violence
March 1, 2013

Live-blogging the final Kenyan presidential debate
February 25, 2013

Making sense of Kenya’s ethnopolitical alliances
February 19, 2013

Kenyatta, Ruto cleared to run in Kenyan election despite ICC woes
February 18, 2013