Opposition wins landslide victory in Kenyan elections
Veteran politician Mwai Kibaki and his opposition alliance have won a landslide victory in Kenyan elections, breaking the ruling party’s 39-year grip on power, according to figures from an independent body monitoring the election.
With most of the votes counted, the 71-year-old economist, who is leader of the National Rainbow Coalition, had a 33 percentage point lead over Uhuru Kenyatta, candidate for the Kenya African National Union, or Kanu – the party that has ruled this East African nation since independence from Britain in 1963, the Institute for Education in Democracy said.
The international donor-funded institute, which is part of an umbrella of Kenya organisations monitoring the election, said 5,062,079 votes had been counted by 7am local time (4am Irish time) today, and Mr Kibaki had tallied 3,157,025 votes to Mr Kenyatta’s 1,493,252. The remaining votes were shared among three other minor candidates.
Turnout was 56%, the institute said. Some 10.5 million Kenyans had registered to vote for president, 210 members of parliament and 2,104 local councilors.
The opposition alliance, dubbed NARC, had captured 116 of 174 parliamentary seats so far counted, compared to Kanu’s 42, the institute said. The other seats were won by smaller parties.
Kenya has 210 parliamentary constituencies and results from some remote areas, where voting was delayed because of heavy rain, had not been released.
The Electoral Commission had Mr Kibaki leading by a 2-to-1 vote margin. Based on tallies from 135 constituencies, Mr Kibaki received 2,573,395 votes, compared with Mr Kenyatta’s 1,223,086, the commission said. NARC had garnered 88 seats in parliament to KANU’s 36.
Final official results were expected later today.
Mr Kenyatta was hand-picked by President Daniel arap Moi, who has ruled Kenya for 24 years and is constitutionally obliged to step down at the end of his current five-year term.
“The Kenyan people have now spoken, and it is with great joy and humility that we accept their trust in president-elect Kibaki and NARC,” Raila Odinga, a leading member of NARC, said yesterday as results trickled in.
Mr Kibaki, who has been a leading opposition figure since multiparty politics were reintroduced in 1991, was Mr Moi’s vice president from 1978 to 1988. A London School of Economics graduate, Mr Kibaki was also Kenya’s longest-serving finance minister, holding the post from 1969 to 1982 – a period of relative prosperity.
He placed second to Mr Moi in 1997 elections and was third in 1992.
During campaigning, Mr Kibaki promised to right the wrongs of 39-years of Kanu government and revive the country’s ailing economy and fight rampant corruption.
The opposition alliance includes more than 10 parties and a number of former Kanu stalwarts.
Kenyatta, a 41-year-old political novice who has never held elective office, had argued that he represented a new generation of Kenyan leaders.
But Kanu was humiliated at the polls, and a number of senior party members, including Vice President Musalia Mudavadi and Internal Security Minister Julius Sunkuli, lost their seats.
Most Kenyans blame Mr Moi and KANU’s political patronage for their country’s troubles. Mr Moi became president in 1978 upon the death of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta.
Kenya boasts East Africa’s largest and most important economy and has remained stable while most of its neighbours – Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia – have been plagued by civil conflicts.
But in recent years its economy has hit rock bottom, largely because of corruption and government mismanagement that has scared off foreign investors.
More than half of Kenya’s 30 million people live on less than £1 a day, few have access to water or electricity and unemployment is rife.
Mr Kibaki has promised free primary education to the nation of 30 million people and to rid the country of corruption.
