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IEBC declares Uhuru Kenyatta winner, Nasa rejects results


President Uhuru Kenyatta was on Friday night declared the winner of the 2017 presidential election at a ceremony held at Bomas of Kenya, the national tallying centre.

Declaring the results, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Mr Wafula Chebukati, said that Mr Kenyatta had garnered 8,203,290 votes, representing 54.27 per cent of the votes cast.

The ODM and Nasa candidate, Mr Raila Odinga, came in second with 6,762,224 votes, representing 44.74 per cent of the votes cast.

In total, 15,073,662 people cast their votes, representing 78.91 per cent of the registered voters.

Mr Kenyatta also garnered more than 25 per cent of the votes cast in 35 counties, compared to Mr Odinga who got over 25 per cent in 29 counties.

As such, Mr Kenyatta had qualified to be declared winner together with his running mate, Mr William Ruto.

“I, therefore, wish to declare Hon Uhuru Kenyatta the President-elect and Hon William Ruto as the Deputy-President-elect,” Mr Chebukati said before handing the winners’ certificates to the two.

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

In his acceptance speech, Mr Kenyatta reached out to those who had lost, especially to Mr Odinga.

“To our brothers and worthy competitors, we are not enemies,” he said. “There shall be winners and losers in any competition.

“I, therefore, wish to declare Hon Uhuru Kenyatta the President-elect and Hon William Ruto as the Deputy-President-elect,” Mr Chebukati said before handing the winners’ certificates to the two.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Kenyatta reached out to those who had lost, especially to Mr Odinga.

“To our brothers and worthy competitors, we are not enemies,” he said. “There shall be winners and losers in any competition.

“I reach out to you and all your supporters and all elected on the opposition benches… we shall develop this country together.”

To Kenyans, he said: “Elections come and go… Let us always remember we are brothers and sisters. There is no need for violence. Politicians come and go, but your neighbours remain. Reach out to your neighbour, shake their hands tell them regardless of who you voted for you are still my brother, my sister”.

JOSEPH NYAGAH

The other candidates had less than one per cent of the votes cast. Mr Joseph Nyaga got 42,259 votes, Mr Abduba Dida got 38,093 votes, Dr Ekuru Aukot 27,311, Mr Japheth Kaluyu got 16,482, Prof Michael Wainaina got 13,257 while Cyrus Jirongo got 11,705.

The announcement of President Kenyatta’s victory came after an afternoon full of tension that culminated in Nasa tabling a list of demands at the National Tallying Centre.

Mr Odinga had made his way to the tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya accompanied by his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka, Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama, ODM chairman John Mbadi and a host of other leaders, including Mr Odinga’s chief agents Musalia Mudavadi and James Orengo.

They immediately went into a meeting with Mr Chebukati and are also reported to have met religious leaders and envoys.

FRESH DEMANDS

After the meetings, Nasa gave a fresh set of demands, top of which was that the electoral commission should open up its computer servers to allow them and any other interested party to scrutinise it.

“Give us access to servers where the results have come from. We should be allowed to look at the hacking that took place, particularly between noon on August 8 and on the morning of August 9,” said Mr Orengo.

The Nasa leaders said some of the presidential results being relayed were from polling stations that had not been gazetted.

According to them, many of these were in the Rift Valley.

Mr Mudavadi and Mr Orengo also explained that their claim on Thursday that Mr Odinga was the winner of the presidential contest did not amount to a declaration of results.

Mr Orengo said that Nasa expected a reply from IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati on the complaints and demands that they had made.

FORMAL REQUEST

Asked about the demands later, Mr Ezra Chiloba, the commission’s chief executive, said “We don’t have a formal request. They had a meeting with the chairman and the chairman has not briefed the commission.”

Asked whether the demand on the servers would be met, he said: “The process has been transparent enough.”

IEBC has denied claims that its servers were hacked and dismissed a document produced by Nasa purporting to show logs on their server.

They said that while the Nasa document indicates that IEBC was using a Microsoft SQL database, the commission was actually using a platform run on an Oracle database.

Mr Chebukati on Thursday evening described Nasa’s claim regarding the commission’s servers as “grossly incorrect and premature” and the document they submitted as “plainly falsified” and containing elementary mathematical errors.