After a Bitter Contest, Kenyan Opposition Leader Rejects Election Result

NAIROBI, Kenya — Talking for the primary time since he misplaced Kenya’s hard-fought presidential election, the opposition chief Raila Odinga rejected the consequence introduced on Monday and vowed to pursue “all legal options,” apparently signaling that the dispute that has gripped the East African nation is more likely to be determined at its Supreme Court docket.

The slender victory pronounced by the electoral fee in favor of his rival, William Ruto — 50.5 % of votes towards 48.9 % for Mr. Odinga — was “a travesty and a blatant disregard of the constitution and the laws of Kenya,” Mr. Odinga advised supporters at a convention heart in downtown Nairobi.

The outcomes are “null and void and must be quashed by a court of law,” he added.

Kenya’s election was largely lauded, till yesterday, as one in every of its most peaceable and best-organized votes. However Mr. Odinga’s accusations plunged the nation right into a interval of uncertainty that's more likely to final weeks, if not longer.

Nonetheless, his choice to take his problem to the courts, somewhat than the streets, was a aid to many Kenyans who feared the argument would possibly spiral into violence.

“We had gathered stones and tires to burn; we were ready to go,” stated Alex Shisia, a 46-year-old bus driver and self-described “Odinga die-hard” who had come to listen to his chief communicate on Tuesday. “But we are walking away and going home.”

A string of flattering newspaper headlines on Tuesday greeted Mr. Ruto, who's at present vice-president. He moved shortly to cement his standing as president-elect, issuing a name for nationwide unity on Monday and taking congratulatory cellphone calls from the leaders of different African nations.

He assured rivals there was “no room for vengeance” after a fiercely-fought marketing campaign, and provided an olive department to supporters of Mr. Odinga, who at 77 is making his fifth bid for the presidency, having misplaced his first 4 makes an attempt.

In his speech, Mr. Odinga accused the electoral fee chairman, Wafula Chebukati, of behaving like a “dictator” to swing the vote in favor of Mr. Ruto. And Mr. Odinga heaped reward on 4 election commissioners who had stormed from the counting heart on Monday, moments earlier than the consequence was anticipated to be declared, saying Mr. Chebukati had ignored their issues concerning the counting course of.

Mr. Ruto, for his half, has dismissed their actions as a “side show,” together with any suggestion that they've tainted the legality of his election.

The 4 dissenting commissioners, appointed final 12 months by Mr. Odinga’s political ally, President Uhuru Kenyatta, gave a news convention on Tuesday the place they outlined their causes for refusing to confirm the tally.

Their remarks have been broadcast on a big display on the convention corridor the place Mr. Odinga’s supporters have been ready to listen to him communicate. They clapped when one of many dissenting commissioners, Juliana Cherera, known as the consequence “unconstitutional.”

However the commissioners undermined their very own case with some apparently mistaken math.

Ms. Cherera advised the news convention they'd uncovered a .01 % error within the depend that amounted to 142,000 misplaced votes — a large determine in an election determined by about 233,000 votes.

The truth is, that proportion quantities to 1,420 votes — an obvious mistake that triggered a wave of derision on social media that was led by Mr. Ruto’s supporters.

Kenyans are on edge as a result of their final three elections have resulted in disputes, at all times over claims that Mr. Odinga was cheated of victory, that spilled over into prolonged confrontations and, in 2007, ethnically-targeted violence wherein greater than 1,200 individuals have been killed.

However this time, Mr. Odinga’s attraction for calm — “Let no one take the law into their own hands,” he stated in Nairobi — appeared to have been heeded at his strongholds in western Kenya, and within the sprawling Nairobi shantytown of Kibera, the place the streets have been largely quiet on Tuesday.

Burned tires, sticks and stones strewn throughout streets in Kisumu County, in western Kenya, testified to clashes between protesters and safety forces on Monday evening. However by Tuesday afternoon, procuring facilities and eating places have been reopening in Kisumu, the county’s lakeside capital, the place even some site visitors jams started to type.

Within the low-income Kondele district, younger males clustered in teams on streets glittering with damaged glass to chew over Mr. Odinga’s speech.

“We won’t fight, we won’t go to the streets,” stated Tony Odhiambo, 25, who works at an web cafe. “We will wait for the court to take his side.”

Nonetheless, the presidential dispute has opened a deep chasm in Kenya’s energy constructions, and has badly strained its state establishments. And on Tuesday many have been nonetheless processing the chaotic scenes that erupted a day earlier, on the climax of the election.

As 1000's of individuals waited for outcomes, the 4 dissenting election commissioners argued behind closed doorways for hours, refusing to log out on the outcomes.

Mr. Odinga’s prime aides held an impromptu news convention to denounce the counting heart because the “scene of a crime.” Then his supporters rampaged by way of the corridor, casting the occasion into full disarray.

Odinga supporters rushed the dais, flung chairs onto the ground and clashed with safety officers brandishing truncheons. International officers fled. A choir continued to sing.

Half an hour later Mr. Chebukati appeared, noting that two of his commissioners had been assaulted earlier than he declared Mr. Ruto because the winner.

Western allies declined to endorse his win, evidently ready for the result of any court docket course of. However the USA embassy acknowledged the management of the beleaguered Mr. Chebukati with an announcement that praised the consequence as “an important milestone in the electoral process.”

On Tuesday, the federal government’s Kenya Gazette issued a particular version formally declaring Mr. Ruto because the president-elect, in a transfer that underscored the legitimacy of his victory.

An election officer who had vanished from a polling station in Nairobi was discovered useless 125 miles away, close to the bottom of Mount Kilimanjaro on Kenya’s southern border, native news media reported. It was not instantly clear whether or not his dying was linked to the voting.

A press release on Tuesday by the Election Remark Group, a revered coalition of civic and faith-based teams, may make Mr. Odinga’s problem harder. At a news convention in Nairobi, it issued an in depth evaluation of the printed election outcomes, evaluating them with its personal tally, and concluded they have been broadly correct.

Declan Walsh and Matthew Mpoke Bigg reported from Nairobi, and Abdi Latif Dahir from Kisumu, Kenya.