Tallying under way in closely contested Kenya election | Elections News

Tuesday’s vote saw low turnout and results are expected to be announced by the electoral commission on Thursday at the earliest.

Nairobi, Kenya – The tallying of results from Kenya’s presidential and parliamentary elections is ongoing, a day after millions voted for a successor to incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Voting was largely peaceful but the turnout was low, with only 30 percent of the registered 22 million voters showing up as of noon (09:00 GMT), six hours into the vote. By 4pm (13:00 GMT), that had swelled to 56 percent.

There were long queues of people outside polling stations in the capital Nairobi a few hours before polling officially began but voting also extended past the official 6pm (15:00 GMT) closing time at some stations nationwide due to delayed starts.

“Transmission of results has started,” Wafula Chebukati, the head of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) told reporters on Tuesday evening.

Deputy President William Ruto, 55, is squaring up against former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, in the race to succeed incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta, who is finishing up the second of two five-year terms.

According to the IEBC’s website, results had been collected from 95.6 percent of the 46,229 polling stations across the country’s 47 counties, as of Wednesday morning.

About 200 electronic voter kits failed, of a total of more than 46,000, the commission said.

Local newspaper The Nation and other organisations including the National Churches of Kenya (NCCK) are observing parallel tallies.

Some reports indicate that Ruto has won in polling units where Kenyatta and Odinga’s running mate Martha Karua voted, but both candidates are going neck and neck in the overall race.

But Chebukati is expected to wait for physical copies of Form 34-A, the results form from the polling stations, to be delivered to the National Tallying Centre for verification and computation before any results are announced.