KENYA DECIDES: Low voter turnout taints Uhuru’s hopes for decisive second-term mandate

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s hopes for a decisive second-term mandate has been dealt a big blow as results of election rerun began to trickle in with early estimates showing the turnout of voters standing at below 35 percent.

Reports say nearly all followers of opposition leader Raila Odinga heeded the veteran’s call for a boycott of the polls though Kenyatta’s victory is not in question as it seems.

However, a local media tally of numbers released at the constituency level by the election commission shows that the incumbent President, Uhuru Kenyatta is ahead of rerun elections with 96% votes.

Compiled by the Daily Nation media group, the tally showed that Kenyatta had won 5.58 million votes from 200 out of 292 constituencies and he is well ahead of his closest rival Raila Odinga who has boycotted the election.

In a related development, the opposition party has warned the election commission not to conduct polls in four western counties where polls did not open on Thursday due to violence.

Read also: KENYA: Odinga calls for votes boycott, civil unrest as election begins

The opposition also called on its supporters to boycott any process that goes ahead within the western counties.

“We advise the people not to walk into this trap of death. We call on the residents of these counties to stay away from these planned polls,” Musalia Mudavadi, a senior member of the NASA coalition, told reporters.

Voting was hampered by “security challenges” in a number of places in the sestern counties and would be delayed until Oct. 28, Kenya’s election commission has revealed.

According to head of the election commission, Wafula Chebukati, the areas where voting would be delayed included Homa Hay, Kisumu, Migori and Siaya – all in the opposition stronghold of western Kenya.

 

 

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