NAIROBI (Reuters) – Uhuru Kenyatta opened an early lead as Kenya continued the count today in a presidential election that brought out millions of voters despite pockets of violence that killed at least 15 people.
Kenyans, who waited patiently in long lines, hope the vote will restore the nation’s image as one of Africa’s more stable democracies after tribal blood-letting killed more than 1,200 people when the result of the 2007 vote was disputed by rivals.
Early tallies from yesterday’s broadly peaceful voting gave an edge to Kenyatta, the 51-year-old deputy prime minister, over rival Prime Minister Raila Odinga, 68.
That lead could still be overhauled because it was based on a count from just over 20 percent of polling stations, provisional figures from the election commission indicated. Final results are likely to be announced later on Tuesday.
Election officials had said turnout was more than 70 per cent of the 14.3 million eligible voters but have not given a precise total.
The United States and Western donors have watched the vote closely, concerned about the stability of a nation seen as a regional ally in the fight against militant Islam. They also worry about what to do if Kenyatta wins, because he faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) related to the violence five years ago.
For an outright victory, a candidate needs more than 50 per cent of votes cast, otherwise the top two face a run-off, provisionally set for April.
Odinga may be facing his last crack at the presidency after narrowly missing out in 2007 to now-outgoing President Mwai Kibaki. Losing to Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president after independence, would mark another defeat in the family’s ambitions after Odinga’s father also failed to secure the top post.
Odinga and Kenyatta ran neck-and-neck in polls before the 2013 race, well ahead of six other rivals.
“If elected, we will be able to discharge our duties,” Kenyatta’s running mate, William Ruto, who also faces charges of crimes against humanity, said during voting. “We shall cooperate with the court with a final intention of clearing our names.”
At a news briefing after most polls had closed, Ruto said the vote had been “free, fair and credible”, and welcomed the early lead by Kenyatta.
The party of Odinga, who had raised questions about preparations for the vote before yesterday but still said he would win, issued comments suggesting they might challenge the result.
Citing late voting at one polling station hours after the official close, voters casting more than one ballot in some areas and a failure of the electronic voter registration system in places, Frank Bett, a senior official in Odinga’s CORD alliance, said: “These we find to be placing in jeopardy the credibility of this process.”
The election commission earlier acknowledged a polling clerk had been caught issuing extra ballots and said manual voter lists were used where the electronic registration system failed.
Kenyans queued from the early hours of the morning to cast their ballots and many said memories of the post-2007 bloodshed and its dire impact on the economy were enough to prevent a repeat this time.
“People want peace after what happened last time,” said Henry Owino, 29, a second-hand clothes seller who was voting in Nairobi’s Kibera slum where violence flared five years ago. “This time the people have decided they don’t want to fight.”
The real test will come when final results emerge. At least 15 people were killed in attacks by machete-wielding gangs on the restive coast shortly before voting started.
Senior police officers blamed the attacks on a separatist movement, suggesting different motives to the ethnic killings that followed the 2007 vote.
