Kenya’s election was free and fair, no signs of centralized or localized manipulation portrayed – assures the EAC, EU Observers
Kenya held general election on Tuesday 8 August and as the voting finalized, the tallying of results began immediately in majority of the polling stations across the country.
According to most of the stations’ results announced so far, Uhuru Kenyatta, the President of Kenya is leading the race by far, which rose up concerns of fraud by his long time political rival and a fellow presidential contestant Raila Odinga.
Raila has raised objections that the IEBC is transmitting results without displaying the required 34A and 34B forms, which he allegedly said was Jubilee’s plan to rig the election.
The 34A and 34B forms display presidential results and are signed by respective party agents at polling stations.
Speaking in Nairobi on Wednesday, Raila asked the IEBC to regroup and display the right results to Kenyans. He so rejected the results that had been transmitted.
“What you are now seeing is a version of computers voting, we reject the transmitted results and ask the IEBC to display the right results,” Raila was reported saying on Wednesday.
At this point on Thursday, all international observers including the East African Community and the European Union, have disagreed with him and called on him and other election losers to accept the results.
In a press conference held on Thursday, August 10, both the EAC and the EU said that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had carried out a free and fair election, and they also commended the IEBC for its great job.
John Mahama, the Commonwealth Observer team leader advised election losers that, “It is better a gracious loser than a sore loser. While it is difficult to lose, one should be gracious,” he said.
“In an election, both the winner and the loser can both be winners, because interest is voters,” Mahama advised.
ELOG (Election Observation Group), IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development), COMESA, African Union and John Kerry, the former United States secretary of state, all expressed the same sentiments and called on leaders to accept the results.
At 11.55am on Thursday, provisional results showed President Uhuru Kenyatta was ahead by 8,056,578 votes (54.27 per cent) while Raila had 6,656,613 votes – 44.84 per cent of the total voters.
