KISUMU, Kenya – After a tumultuous political day in Kenya, the country began on Tuesday to come to terms with the reality of a newly elected president, William Ruto, a deeply divided electorate and uncertainty about how the apparent loser of the election would react to a defeat in a country crucial to East Africa’s economy and stability.
Mr Ruto, who is currently the vice president, made a quick speech and press conference on Monday to cement his newfound status after being declared the winner of Tuesday’s election with 50.49 percent of the vote. He called for unity, saying there was “no room for revenge” after a hard-fought campaign. He was greeted with a string of flattering headlines in Kenya on Tuesday.
In a choreographed series of announcements, he also offered an olive branch to supporters of his main opponent, Raila Odinga, a former prime minister and opposition leader who had been thwarted four times before in his bid to win the presidency.
But two key factors kept the electorate sharp. The first was a troubling split in the electoral commission, with four of its seven members on Monday saying they could not accept the result given the opaque nature of vote counting. Their statement was made before Mr. Ruto was declared the winner and will probably play a role in any lawsuit against the election results.
The second is Mr Odinga’s silence. He will hold a press conference later on Tuesday, but one of his lead aides described the election headquarters as a “crime scene” on Monday.
Earlier elections in Kenya, a country whose democracy is closely watched across Africa and beyond, have led to orchestrated violence.
After elections in 2007, at least 1,200 people were killed and about 600,000 others were forced to flee their homes. This time, religious and civic leaders, as well as much of the political class and the security forces, have emphasized the importance of accepting results and resolving disputes through the courts.
“We are waiting for Baba to speak,” said Wycliffe Oburu, a 23-year-old Odinga supporter, using the name by which the veteran opposition leader is often referred to. “We cannot lose this election.”
On Tuesday morning, the Election Commission formally elected Mr Ruto as president in a special edition of the government’s Kenya Gazette, in a move apparently intended to underscore the legality of the results announced a day earlier.
Many followers of Mr. Odinga view mr. Ruto and his appeal to Kenya, a country that Mr. Ruto calls a ‘hustler nation’, with extreme suspicion. And for voters in western Kenya, an ethnic stronghold for Mr Odinga where many people say they have been barred from presidential power since independence, the announcement of Mr Ruto’s victory pricked on Monday.
In towns along the eastern edge of Kisumu County in western Kenya, the soot from burned tires as well as stones and sticks littered the streets on Tuesday, evidence of protests from the night before. Large rocks and boulders were also seen along a major highway that runs from Kisumu, a town on the shore of Lake Victoria, to Busia, near the Ugandan border.
Protesters on that highway clashed with police overnight, according to witnesses and young men who gathered at bus stops and shops on Tuesday awaiting Mr Odinga’s speech. There were no other reports of clashes, although an election official in Embakasi, an area east of the capital Nairobi, was found dead after going missing, newspapers reported Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether his death was related to the vote.
The key to any dispute of the result will be any evidence that the vote or count was significantly flawed. Mr Odinga challenged the results of the 2017 election, which he lost to Uhuru Kenyatta, in the Supreme Court, which ruled that the elections should be annulled and re-run. Three months later, Mr Kenyatta won again, although Mr Odinga had asked his supporters to boycott the vote. In a move that spoke to the changing alliances that characterize Kenyan politics, Mr. Kenyatta mr. Odinga this time.
A statement on Tuesday from the respected election observation group, which is made up of civic and faith-based groups, could complicate Mr Odinga’s task. The group did its own analysis of the published results and concluded that they were broadly correct.
The detailed statement concluded that the results the group had seen were “consistent” with those of the Election Commission.
Abdi Latif Dahiru reported from Kisumu, and Declan Walsh and Matthew Mpoke Bigg from Nairobi, Kenya.
