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Nairobi/Kisumu – Kenyan opposition chief Raila Odinga rejected as “null and void” the results of an August 9 presidential election he was declared to have misplaced, including on Tuesday that Kenya’s democracy faces an extended authorized disaster.
His first feedback on the outcome got here shortly after 4 of the seven election commissioners stated they stood by their resolution a day earlier to disown the result of the presidential ballot, saying the ultimate tallying course of had been “opaque”.
“Our view is that the figures introduced by (electoral fee chairman Wafula) Chebukati are null and void and should be quashed by court docket of legislation,” Odinga, who was making his fifth bid for the presidency, advised a information convention.
“What we noticed yesterday was a travesty,” he stated. “Let nobody take the legislation into their very own palms.”
Chebukati declared present deputy president William Ruto the winner on Monday with 50.49% of the vote towards Odinga’s 48.5%.
Minutes earlier, his deputy Juliana Cherera advised media at a separate location that she and three different commissioners disowned the outcomes.
Talking for the group on Tuesday, Cherera stated the outcomes that gave Ruto a wafer-thin victory had been erroneously aggregated and accused Chebukati of over-ruling their questions on the ultimate tally.
She stated the elections had been carried out in a correct method.
Chebukati and the 4 dissenting commissioners didn’t reply to Reuters requests for remark.
Odinga broadcast the dissenting fee members’ personal information convention at his personal venue earlier than taking the stage.
In his speech, he urged his supporters to take care of peace and to not take the legislation into their very own palms.
Monday’s dramatic occasions have raised fears of violence like that seen after previous elections in Kenya, often considered one of Africa’s most secure international locations, and Odinga had confronted calls from house and overseas to decide to resolving any disputes within the courts.
5 years in the past, greater than 100 individuals had been killed after the Supreme Courtroom overturned the outcome citing anomalies within the voting course of.
A decade earlier, greater than 1 200 individuals had been killed in widespread violence after the 2007 presidential vote.
At a crowded restaurant within the western metropolis of Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold, there was sporadic applause as he rejected yesterday’s outcomes on “stay” tv.
In Kisumu and Nairobi’s enormous Kibera slum, the place most voters additionally strongly favour Odinga, quiet had returned to the streets after protesters battled police and burned tyres in a single day.
(Reuters)
