Vote counting is underway in Kenya with over 10 million voters shunning the elections. 12M of the 22 million registered voters across Kenya had cast their votes by 5pm East African time. With polls now closed, the counting has already begun. Turnout across the country was reported to be lower than in previous presidential elections, when as many as 80% of registered citizens voted.
The hotly contested race to clinch Kenya’s presidency has reached a climax as the voting authorities, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)continue to burn their midnight candles tallying and compiling the much awaited results of one of the most expensive elections in the world.
IEBC of Kenya is the authority levied with the task of counting and declaring election results. The authority has up to seven days to announce the winner of the 2022 presidential election. Seven days is believed to be sufficient enough for electoral body to collect, sort, count and tally all ballots from all polling stations. Article 138 (3) (c) states that after counting the votes from all polling stations, the electral Commission shall tally, verify, count and declare the results.
Also, “The Chairperson of the Commission shall declare the result of the election and deliver a written notification of the result to the Chief Justice and the incumbent President,” reads Article 138(10) of constitution of the Republic of Kenya.
To win the presidential race in the first round, a candidate need more than half of all the votes casted across the country and at least 25% of the votes cast in a minimum of 24 counties.
To ensure transparency, the media, political parties and civil society groups have been encouraged to run their own tallies using final results from over 40,000 polling stations.But only the electoral commission shall declare the winner of the presidential election after the verification of both physical and digital forms sent to the national tallying centre.
After the declaration of the winner, the president-elect shall be sworn-in on the 14th day after the election date if the election results are not contested or if there is no re-run..
With only 6% of the votes counted so far as of tuesday, 10pm EAT, Raila Odinga is edging in at 52.1%, Ruto stands at 47.3%, Wajackoyah dwindles at 0.40% where as Waihiga strolls at 0.19 %.
Days to the polling day, the race became a close-shave, a testament to Kenya’s maturing democracy, which, despite its flaws, stands in contrast to other African countries where once-high democratic hopes have given way to sham votes and military coups in recent years. As authorities continue to tally the votes, the most inevitable are the claims of rigging by the loser but the most important thing remains, declaration of the most awaited results.
Anxious Kenyans will be holding their breath until then.
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