Kenya’s election count has entered its fourth day, following an election this week that pitted former Prime Minister Raila Odinga against Deputy President William Ruto.
On Friday, the head of Kenya’s electoral commission blamed slow progress on disruptions by political parties, who he said were treating the process as a “forensic audit”.
“Please do not interrogate the returning officers and slow down the process,” electoral body chairperson Wafula Chebukati said during a press conference. “If we do that, we won’t be able to finish this exercise.”
The electoral commission has until August 16 to announce the results, but was expected to announce the winner within a week. Election observers say the prolonged recount is fueling public anxiety and misinformation. Unverified claims of gadgets have started to appear.
“It is important that both political parties follow the legal mechanisms if there are any concerns, without stirring up public emotions or telling the public to reject the result, because that amounts to public incitement,” said Javas Bigambo, a governance expert. .
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The country’s elections have been contested in its last three cycles. In 2017, Kenya’s supreme court ordered a repeat poll due to “widespread discrepancies,” and in 2007, a disputed result led to deadly post-election violence.
Reports show that public confidence in the electoral body is at a paltry 26%. The national media, political parties and citizens made independent vote counts based on the data that the electoral commission has made available to the public. Experts say the move boosted the body’s public image.
But the parallel counts faced some challenges. Some public groups lacked the resources and manpower to sift through the data, and conflicting national media accounts led to some initial public confusion as different outlets made their way through the data.
To the frustration of the public, the national media also unexpectedly stopped their counts at the peak of the count on Thursday, without explanation. Accounts from one major media outlet had shown the race would come down to the wire, with Ruto and Odinga within a percentage point of each other with close to 90% of the votes counted.
The electoral commission is the only body that can declare the results. Governance experts say that while the media and public accounts are an important step towards transparency, an announcement by the electoral body would carry more weight.
“The media still lacks the capacity and independence from the state that would allow it to call elections,” Bigambo said. “If they completed the count before the IEBC [Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission], allegedly pressured the IEBC to declare a winner even before the verification process was over. With our history, this could have led to a political catastrophe.”