The chairman of the Kenya Independent Electoral Commission declared on Monday to William Ruth winner of the presidential elections, after six days of waiting and the rejection of the result by part of the members of the commission.
Wafula Chebukati announced that Vice President Ruto had been elected with the 50.49% of the votes (7,170,000 ballots), compared to 48.85% (6,940,000 votes) of Raila Odinga, the historic opposition candidate, in one of the tightest ballots in the history of the country.
Minutes before this statement, four of the seven commissioners of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEBC) told a news conference at a hotel in the capital, Nairobi, that they rejected the results.
”We cannot take responsibility for the results to be announced due to the opaque nature of the process”, declared the vice president of the IEBC, Juliana Cherera.
Cherera asked Kenyans for “tranquility”, in a country marked by the post-election violence that occurred in 2007-2008.
The 2022 elections took place in a peaceful but they had a lower participation than in 2017, 65% (more than 22 million voters) by 78% in the previous presidential appointment.
With the result of the vote, William Samoei Ruto succeeds Uhuru Kenyatta (in power since 2013, and who could not run due to the two-term limit), and becomes the fifth president of the country.
After a campaign in which he tried to forget his incendiary characterRuto won 233,211 votes more than his main rival, Odinga, who had won the surprising support of President Kenyatta.
At 55 years old, Ruto becomes the first president in 20 years of the Kalenjin ethnic group, after two presidents of the Kikuyu ethnic group.
Born into a humble family in the Rift Valley (west), Ruto uses his story of “self-made man” (he is one of the richest people in the country) to present himself as the defender of entrepreneurs of modest origin, against the power of the political dynasties that Kenyatta and Odinga embody.
(with information from AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com