William Ruto declared winner in close Kenyan Presidential Poll

Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto has been elected as the country's next President, the electoral commission announced Monday.

Ruto won with 50.49% of the vote, narrowly defeating veteran opposition leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who was contesting his fifth election.
He will become Kenya's fifth President since independence, winning the seat on his first attempt. Ruto's party, the Kenya First coalition, has won a majority of seats in Kenya's senate, the second highest in the National Assembly.

The results announcement was delayed for more than two hours past the constitutional deadline and the country's electoral commission was split after four officials disowned the commission's chairman Wafula Chebukati's results.

The opposing officials staged a press conference of their own at another venue disputing the official results. The IEBC's vice chair Juliana Cherera was among those who disagreed with the results but provided no evidence of irregularities.

Earlier Monday, Ruto's rival Odinga's coalition also rejected the election results before they had even been announced by Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Odinga's chief agent Saitabao Kanchory told the press outside the national election centre in Nairobi that they had not yet been able to cross-check the final result with their own tally.

“Once we see them, we want to verify them, when we verify them, we will be able to know and to tell the Kenyan people because a result that is not verifiable is not a result.” Kanchory told reporters awaiting the results announcement.

The national tallying centre briefly descended into chaos shortly after Odinga's coalition rejected the results, with fighting breaking out and chairs being thrown in the building.

Ruto thanked the people of Kenya for voting him as the next leader of the country in his first speech after being announced the winner of the election.

“In this election, there are no losers. The people of Kenya have won because we have raised the political bar. The people of Kenya are the biggest winners,” he said

He expressed his “gratitude” to Kenyan citizens “who refused to be boxed into tribal cocoons.”

He also thanked his competitor and veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, and said: “We dwelled on issues and tried to sell an agenda to the people of Kenya during the campaign.”

“It was God that brought us here … my team and I will make sure that the sacrifices made by many Kenyans is not in vain …I will run a transparent, open, democratic government and I will work with the opposition to the extent that they provide oversight over my administration,” he added.

There was a divided response to the presidential election results in Kenya on Monday evening. In Eldoret, live pictures from Ruto's hometown showed large crowds celebrating and cheering his win.

But in Kisumu, Odinga's stronghold, protests erupted. Live images showed scores protesting the election results, tires on fire and smoke billowing in the air.

Odinga's running mate Martha Karua also took to Twitter following the results announcement and said: “It is not over till it is over.”