NAIROBI
\nThe head of Kenya\u2019s election commission on Friday admitted the tallying of results from the country\u2019s presidential poll was moving too slowly, blaming political parties for the delay, as national broadcasters abruptly stopped sharing provisional outcomes.
\nTuesday\u2019s election was largely peaceful but disputes over previous presidential votes have been followed by deadly violence, fuelling jitters as provisional results point to a tight race between frontrunners William Ruto and Raila Odinga.
\nAfter the Supreme Court annulled the 2017 presidential poll, citing irregularities and mismanagement by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the election watchdog is under pressure to deliver a clean vote and release the results by August 16.
\nBut the complex process of verifying and tallying votes is now in its fourth day, with IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati accusing political party agents of delaying the exercise by haranguing election workers with unnecessary questions.
\n\u201cWe have observed that we are not moving as fast as we should. This exercise needs to be concluded as soon as possible,\u201d Chebukati said.\u201dThe agents in this exercise cannot proceed in the manner in which we are proceeding as if we are doing a forensic audit.
\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t interrogate the… officers and slow down the process. If we do that, we will not be able to finish this exercise,\u201d he warned.The IEBC, in a bid to be transparent, has uploaded forms to its website showing the results from each polling station, enabling Kenyan TV channels to work out their tallies.
\nBut the broadcasters suddenly stopped their tallies on Thursday, with around a million votes left to go. They provided no explanation for the halt. Chebukati has urged Kenyans not to worry about the different outcomes projected by various TV channels, saying the IEBC would release the results as soon as possible.
\nBut with the wait likely stretching into the weekend, some Kenyans said they were increasingly anxious to know who the country\u2019s next leader would be.\u201dWe pray they announce, the earlier the better,\u201d Jael Akinyi, a retired librarian, told AFP on a busy street corner in Odinga\u2019s bastion of Kisumu.
\nChristopher Mesa, a pastor at the Africa Gospel Church in the lakeside city, said there was \u201ca lot of anxiety about the results\u201d among his congregation, and the conflicting results on television only served to confuse people.\u201dBy not showing the results, it calms the people. That was bringing emotions up and down,\u201d he said.
\n \u201cWe would rather it takes time but it is clear. The delay is not a problem,\u201d he told media.International observers, including from the United States, the European Union and the African Union, have hailed the IEBC for improving its procedures compared to earlier polls.But turnout was lower than that seen in previous elections and some Kenyans said they were keen to move on from the vote and resume normal life.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t care (for) the ongoing counting for the presidential (election), it makes people anxious,\u201d Peter Kamau, a 42-year-old taxi driver, told media.\u201dWe want to go back to daily life.\u201d No presidential poll outcome has gone uncontested in Kenya since 2002, and the disputes have led to bloodshed in the past, either involving ethnic clashes or police violence.
\nSocial media is already swamped with disinformation about the results, with rights campaigners and civil society groups accusing both candidates\u2019 camps of sharing misleading posts.Kenyans voted in six elections on Tuesday, choosing a new president as well as senators, governors, lawmakers, women representatives and some 1,500 county officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAIROBI The head of Kenya\u2019s election commission on Friday admitted the tallying of results from the country\u2019s presidential poll was moving too slowly, blaming political parties for the delay, as national broadcasters abruptly stopped sharing provisional outcomes. Tuesday\u2019s election was largely peaceful but disputes over previous presidential votes have been followed by deadly violence, fuelling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-277047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n