Kenya’s electoral commission chairman declared Deputy President William Ruto the winner of a tight presidential race on Monday, but some senior election officials disowned the result.
Ruto received 50.49% of the vote, the chairman said, while the 77-year-old longtime opposition figure Raila Odinga received 48.85%.
But chaos emerged just before the declaration when the electoral commission’s vice chair and three other commissioners told journalists they could not support the “opaque nature” of the final phase of the process.
“We cannot take ownership of the result that is going to be announced,” vice chair Juliana Cherera said, without giving details.
At the declaration venue, police surged to impose calm amid shouting, and scuffles before electoral commission chair Wafula Chebukati announced the official results — and said the two commissioners still there had been injured.
The sudden split in the commission came minutes after Odinga’s chief agent said they could not verify the results and made allegations of “electoral offenses” without giving details or evidence. Odinga didn’t come to the venue for the declaration.
Now Kenyans are waiting to see whether Odinga will again go to court to contest the results of last Tuesday’s peaceful election.