TheNewsGuru

Tag: Kenya

  • Kenyan Presidential Re-run: Election turnout below 35 per cent – Commission

    Results of Kenya’s presidential election re-run started to trickle in on Friday, with early estimates of the turnout at below 35 percent.

    With nearly all followers of opposition leader Raila Odinga heeding the veteran’s call for a boycott, Kenyatta’s victory is not in question.

    The first election, in August, was annulled by the courts because of procedural irregularities, denying Kenyatta a simple victory over his long-term political rival.

    Voting on Thursday was marred by skirmishes between police and stone-throwing opposition supporters, who prevented polling stations from opening in four pro-Odinga counties, forcing election officials to postpone the exercise by 48 hours.

    The Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said more than one in 10 polling stations failed to open.

    IEBC chairman, Wafula Chebukati, Tweeted overnight that 6.55 million ballots had been cast – just 34.5 percent of registered voters.

    By contrast, turnout in the August election was 80 percent.

    The outcome is being closely watched across East Africa, which relies on Kenya as a trade and logistics hub, and in the West, which considers Nairobi a bulwark against Islamist militancy in Somalia and conflict in South Sudan and Burundi.

    In the western city of Kisumu, police used tear gas and fired live rounds over the heads of stone-throwing youths.

    A nurse said gunfire killed one protester and wounded three.

    In Homa Bay county next door, police said they shot dead one protester and injured another.

    There were similar scenes in Kibera and Mathare, two volatile Nairobi slums.

    At least one person was shot in the leg, a Red Cross official said, and a church was fire-bombed.

    Around 50 people have been killed, mostly by security forces, since the original Aug. 8 vote, raising fears of sustained violence only a decade after 1,200 people were killed in serious ethnic fighting triggered by another disputed vote.

    Legal challenges to the re-run are expected. If they fail to provide a clear path out of the crisis, including an order for another re-run, many Kenyans are fearing protracted political stalemate between the Uhuru Kenyatta and Odinga camps.

    “Unless the courts annul the election, Kenyatta will move forward without a clear mandate and Odinga will pursue a protest strategy whose chances of success in the circumstances are not very high,” said International Crisis Group analyst Murithi Mutiga.

     

     

    Reuters/NAN

  • Kenya election board CEO, Ezra Chiloba rejected by opposition goes on leave

    Ezra Chiloba, Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said on Friday he was taking three weeks of leave.

    Opposition demanded that Chiloba must be fired before a repeat presidential election scheduled for Oct. 26,

    The first presidential vote in August, which gave victory to Kenyatta, was annulled because of procedural irregularities.

    Chiloba said he had taken a personal decision to take leave in light of the opposition’s demands, without giving more details.

    He said all arrangements were in place for the election, as ordered by the Supreme Court.

    “This is the first time I‘m taking leave since my son was born. He turns two years (old) in two weeks’ time,” he told Reuters.

    The court annulled the first election, held in August and in which incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta was declared winner, over procedural irregularities.

    The opposition, led by Raila Odinga, has said it will boycott the re-run unless several demands, including the sacking of Chiloba, are met.

    Odinga met the chairman of the IEBC board, Wafula Chebukati, on Thursday and later told reporters that if there were serious consultations and serious reforms, the opposition could review its boycott.

    The board has said the election will go ahead and Kenyatta, has insisted the vote must be held.

    On Thursday, the president snubbed an invitation to meet Chebukati, saying he would instead spend the time campaigning.

  • Kenya re-run: Kenyatta blasts Odinga, says ‘We’ll go ahead with elections despite your withdrawal’

    Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday said a re-run of August’s nullified presidential election would go ahead as planned on Oct. 26 after opposition leader Raila Odinga said he was withdrawing from the race.

    “We have no problem going back to elections.

    “We are sure we will get more votes than the last time,” Kenyatta told a rally in the southern town of Voi, speaking in Kiswahili.

    Kenya opposition leader, Odinga had announced his withdrawal from the presidential re-run elections scheduled for Oct. 26.

    Odinga said at a news conference in Nairobi that he was boycotting the polls because his demands for electoral reform had not been met.

    A re-run of the presidential vote was announced after Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified the result of the Aug. 8 election due to Odinga’s complaint.

    Odinga claimed that the computers of the electoral commission had been hacked to generate a victory for President Uhuru Kenyatta.

    The initial results announced on Aug. 11, gave Kenyatta a second term with 54 per cent of the votes, followed by Odinga with 44.7 per cent.

    Since the annulment, Odinga and his National Super Alliance coalition (NASA) have been demanding the removal of top managers of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and a change of suppliers of polling materials and technology.

  • Kenya re-run: Opposition leader, Raila Odinga, pulls out of race

    Kenya’s opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has pulled out of the country’s presidential re-run race scheduled to hold on October 26.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that the Supreme Court annulled the result of the August 8 poll due to irregularities.

    Incumbent President, Uhurru Kenyatta was declared the winner of the August 8 elections.

    Odinga had called for the replacement of electoral officials, threatening to withdraw from the race.

    He announced Tuesday that his withdrawal would give the electoral commission enough time to introduce reforms that will help deliver a more credible election, the BBC reports.

    “We have come to the conclusion that there is no intention on the part of the IEBC [electoral commission] to undertake any changes to its operations and personnel… All indications are that the election scheduled for 26 October will be worse than the previous one,” he was quoted as saying.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that Odinga also called on people to protest on Wednesday, using the slogan “no reform, no elections”.

  • Nairobi University shut after violent protests

    Kenya’s oldest university was on Tuesday closed indefinitely following violent students’ protests due to political fallout over recent elections.

    “The University of Nairobi Senate has closed the University with immediate effect due to the deteriorating security situation,” Vice Chancellor Peter Mbithi said in a tweet.

    He said students had been told to vacate the hostels.

    The closure came ahead of more planned students’ protests after demonstrations last week against the arrest of a popular member of parliament and student union leader, Babu Owino, for allegedly calling President Uhuru Kenyatta a “son of a dog.’’

    Last week’s protests saw more than 20 students injured and were broken up when police stormed the campus dispersing protesters with tear gas.

    The vice-chancellor said 26 students were wounded during the police operation, adding that the Independent Police Oversight Authority was investigating the incident.

    Students had planned more demonstrations for Tuesday.

    Tensions have been mounting in the East African nation after Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified the results of an Aug. 8 presidential election, citing irregularities.

    The court took action after opposition leader Raila Odinga lodged a complaint, claiming the computers of the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) were hacked to generate victory for Kenyatta.

    New elections are due to be held October 26, but the opposition and ruling party are divided over disparate demands regarding changes to the country’s electoral commission and laws.

  • JUST IN: CAF strips Kenya of 2018 CHAN hosting rights over poor preparation

    The Confederation of African Football, CAF, on Saturday stripped Kenya of the right to host the 2018 African Nations Championship.

    The decision was announced at a media conference after a one-day meeting of the African football “cabinet” headed by president Ahmad Ahmad from Madagascar.

    Slow preparations for the January 12/February 4 tournament led to a decision widely anticipated for several weeks.

    A CAF inspection team departed Kenya in September to report that only one of the four venues was ready to stage the tournament restricted to home-based footballers.

    Some CAF officials in Accra also expressed concern about the political situation in Kenya, where recently annulled presidential elections are set to be rerun late October.

    It is the second time the regional economic powerhouse has lost the right to stage a CAF competition after being replaced by South Africa as 1996 Africa Cup of Nations hosts.

    Kenya would have been the second successive east African country to stage the CHAN after Rwanda in 2016.

    Other hosts since the 2009 inception of the Nations Championship were the Ivory Coast, Sudan and South Africa.

    There has been media speculation that Morocco or South Africa may replace Kenya.

    Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia have qualified for the 2018 finals.

    Kenya completed the line-up as the host nation — a position they now forfeit.

  • Presidential rerun: Kenyan opposition rejects new election date, threatens boycott

    Kenyan opposition leader, Raila Odinga said on Tuesday his coalition would not participate in the re-run of a presidential election proposed for Oct. 17 unless it is given “legal and constitutional” guarantees.

    Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta responded by saying there was nowhere in law that required the electoral body to consult Odinga.

    Odinga’s conditions for participating in the repeat presidential election include the removal of six officials at the election board.

    He called for criminal investigations to be opened against them.

    “You cannot do a mistake twice and expect to get different results.

    “A number of the officials of the commission should be sent home, some of them should be investigated for the heinous crimes they committed.”

    Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered on Friday that the Aug. 8 vote be re-run within 60 days, saying Kenyatta’s victory by 1.4 million votes was undermined by irregularities in the process.

    Kenyatta was not accused of any wrongdoing.

    The ruling, the first time in Africa that a court had overturned the re-election of a sitting president, was hailed by Odinga supporters as “historic”.

    Analysts have said it is likely to lead to some short-term volatility in East Africa’s biggest economy, but could build confidence in institutions in the longer-term.

    On Monday, the election board said it would hold new elections on Oct. 17, but Odinga said he wanted elections held on Oct. 24 or 31 instead.

    “There will be no elections on Oct. 17 until the conditions that we have spelt out in the statement are met,” he said.

    Kenyatta rebuffed Odinga’s demands to the commission on the setting of the election date.

    “There is no legal requirement that Odinga be consulted. I was neither consulted. Kenya doesn’t belong to one man,” he said in a statement sent by his office.

    Odinga has lost the last three presidential elections. Each time, he said the vote was rigged against him.

    The opposition also plans to lodge 62 court cases contesting governorship, lawmaker, and local seats, spokeswoman Kathleen Openda said.

    At least 33 court cases were filed contesting election results before the presidential election was annulled, said Andrew Limo, spokesman for the election board.

    Others had been filed since but he did not have the updated figure.

    Limo said that the numbers had not yet reached the same level as during the 2013 elections, when the board received challenges to 189 results.

     

     

    Reuters/NAN

  • Kenya to conduct fresh presidential election October 17

    Sequel to a Supreme Court ruling nullifying the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta and ordering a fresh presidential election within sixty days, the election commission in the country on Monday said it will conduct the fresh presidential election on October 17.

    “A fresh presidential election will be held on the 17th of October 2017,” said a statement signed by Wafula Chebukati, chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

    “This is in conformity with the Supreme Court decision annulling the presidential election held on 8th August 2017.”

    Chebukati said only Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who brought the court challenge, would be on the ballot paper, along with their running mates.

    On Friday, chief justice David Maraga cancelled the results of the August poll saying the election commission had failed to hold a legitimate election and that the results were, therefore “invalid, null and void”.

    He added that the IEBC had committed “irregularities and illegalities” in the transmission of results from polling stations to the national tally centre.

    However, a full explanation of the court’s reasoning has yet to be published.

    “It is imperative that a detailed judgement… is released in order to allow the Commission to identify areas that require improvement,” Chebukati said.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that President Kenyatta has since accepted the Supreme Court’s judgement urging Kenyans to remain calm while the two major candidates (Incumbent Kenyatta and Raila Odinga) fight out in another round of fierce contest.

     

  • Kenya mourns as seven schoolgirls are killed in dorm fire

    There was pandemonium in Kenya on Saturday as seven teenage girls died in a fire at a Nairobi school dormitory, and 10 others were injured.

    This was revealed on Saturday by President Uhuru Kenyatta on his Facebook page.

    The President expressed his condolences to the affected families while assuring Kenyans that government will unravel the mystery behind the fire and perpetrators will be justly punished.

    The President’s post on Facebook reads: I was deeply saddened and pained by news of last night’s fire at Moi Girls’ School, Nairobi.

    The young women touched by this tragedy are the best of us: diligent, committed to learning, and prepared to make a difference in the life of the country they love. I mourn with the families who have lost loved ones, and I pray that those injured will recover quickly and fully.

    The families affected, as well as the school and all who wish it well, can be sure that we will investigate the matter fully, and act appropriately, so that this sort of tragedy doesn’t recur. We need to protect our sons and daughters, and we will.

    I pray that the departed will rest in eternal peace, and I pray that all those touched by this tragedy will find consolation and encouragement in God’s grace.

     

  • Kenya2017: Osinbajo, Obasanjo congratulate Kenyatta on re-election

    The Acting President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has congratulated President Uhuru Kenyatta on his re-election as President of the Republic of Kenya.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that Kenyatta was declared the winner on Friday of with 54.27 percent of votes, beating his rival Raila Odinga who scored 44.74 percent.

    In a letter signed by the Acting President after the formal announcement of the election results over the weekend, and addressed to the Kenyan leader, he said, “I have the honour on behalf of the Government and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to congratulate you on your successful re-election as the President of the Republic of Kenya.”

    Osinbajo noted that President Kenyatta’s re-election bears testimony to his selfless service to Kenya and to the giant strides he has taken in the transformation of the country in the last few years.

    “Permit me therefore to use this momentous occasion to reiterate Nigeria’s support and cooperation with Kenya in our collective determination to advance the development of Africa and its people,” the acting president noted.

    Osinbajo extended his best wishes to the people of Kenya on the successful conclusion of the August 8 general elections in the country and wished Mr. Kenyatta a very successful new term in office.

    Meanwhile, former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has also written to congratulate Kenyatta on his re-election.

    Obasanjo’s letter, dated August 12, 2017, noted that last Tuesday’s election in the East African country is not devoid of “some elements of push and pull” associated with recent elections in the continent.

    He however said rather than see these issues as challenges, they should be used as an opportunity to “bind the wound and to unite a country divided by the electoral process.”

    “All friends of Kenya were anxious that there should be no similar violence that followed the election in 2008. So far, so good and thanks to God,” Obasanjo wrote.

    “May I crave your indulgence to suggest that for stability of democracy in Kenya and for the interest of the people of Kenya as a whole, that the allegations of manipulation of results in the process of transmission should be thoroughly investigated with an appropriate measures taken to ensure integrity of future elections, as may be necessary,” he added.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that the country’s opposition has since rejected the result calling it a “charade” and a “disaster.”

    “We are not going to be party to it. Our issues have not been addressed. One can conclude they [electoral commission] are not keen on taking our concerns seriously,”said Musalia Mudavadi, a senior official of the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) and former Kenyan vice president.