William Ruto speaks after being declared the winner of Kenya’s close-fought presidential election. Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images
President William Ruto said he had called for unity to move the country forward despite his main rival's earlier rejection of the election outcome.
But chaos erupted minutes before the results were announced, with four out of seven electoral commissioners saying they disowned the outcome, which they termed “opaque”.
Ruto, who was former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s deputy President, had challenged elected leaders to work for the people.
The 2022 Kenya Kwanza Alliance presidential candidate Ruto said he cautioned his opponents against organising demonstrations or swearing-in themselves if the ODM Party leader loses elections next week.
Ruto received just over 50 percent of the vote in last week's presidential election. Odinga won just under 49 percent.
According to Ruto, his Azimio competitor Raila Odinga was relying on opinion polls to prepare grounds to deny the election outcome.
The results also split the country's electoral commission after some members complained of a lack of transparency in the tallying process.
Ruto argued that the Azimio brigade already knows they will be lose the elections on August 9, 2022.
"That is why they are relying on opinion polls every day since they know we will defeat them on August 9 and they want to organise demonstrations to reject the results," he added.
The dispute has raised fears Kenya may see violence of the kind that has happened after other elections.
The sudden declaration prompted fears that vote-rigging allegations could lead to a legal challenge or even deadly violence like the country witnessed after 2007 and 2017 presidential polls. Cherera tried to allay concerns by advising those involved to take their complaints to court.
Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro noted that in 2017, the opinion polls indicated that Kenyans were in Raila's favour but in the end, President Kenyatta won the polls.
New Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said the Ruto administration marked "freedom" for Kenya, and the days when people were targeted because of their association with him "are over".
Kenyatta's preferred successor, veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, had accused Ruto of cheating his way to victory. But Odinga accepted the Supreme Court ruling upholding the result, laying to rest fears of political violence like that seen after disputed elections in 2007 and 2017.
As news of the results filtered through to Odinga’s stronghold of Kisumu, there were some outbreaks of violence. In one area, protesters congregated on a roundabout, throwing stones, setting tyres on fire and throwing up roadblocks with broken rocks.
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