Kenya’s electoral body says results to be announced tonight

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Chairman Isaack Hassan has assured Kenyans that despite hitches encountered in the vote tallying process, final results of the country’s general elections will be announced tonight.

Friday, March 08, 2013

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Chairman Isaack Hassan has assured Kenyans that despite hitches encountered in the vote tallying process, final results of the country’s general elections will be announced tonight.

While votes from about 20 constituencies are yet to be counted, Jubilee alliance’s Uhuru Kenyatta was still leading with 5,159,344 votes against Raila Odinga’s 4,516,660 votes.

"We want to assure Kenyans that the results we shall announce are credible and reflect the will of the people,” Hassan said. "We are combining accuracy, speed, and human resource capacity because we understand the heavy toll this is taking on our staff.”

Hassan said that his Commission had corrected earlier errors committed in the entry of numbers in the data system.

Meanwhile, the United Democratic Forum presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi has conceded defeat.

Mudavadi, who’s in a distant third-position with 369,491 votes, said it was clear that there were two frontrunners in the elections namely Deputy Prime Minister and ICC indictee Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

"In every election, there is a winner and a loser. Amani is not that winner," Mudavadi said in a statement today.

Mudavadi became the second candidate to concede defeat after Peter Kenneth of Eagle Alliance.

High Court dismisses petition

Meanwhile, Kenya’s High Court today dismissed a petition by a lobby group seeking to stop the tallying of votes in the elections.

Justices Isaac Lenaola, David Majanja and Weldon Korir ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the application.

Legal experts say elections related cases in the country can only be referred to the Supreme Court.

The Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog) had asked the court to stop the vote count after raising concerns about the validity of the entire (vote tallying) process following the collapse of an electronic tallying system, which forced IEBC officials to turn to manual tallying system.