It has been said that this election and the campaign period preceding it have been far more violent and turbulent than the 2002 election. Still, Kenyans have conducted themselves in a manner that is much to be admired, even if some of their leaders have showed the most poor form.
It is with this in mind that we must now seek to restrain ourselves from unhelpful exuberance, even as we await the final results. It is true that the ODM and its candidate seem to have what is currently a large lead but there is no reason why the electoral board should announce a winner before it is certain of the particular outcome.
Many commentators, have given the initial poll results as much credence as they would if Kenya was a single homogenous state. The expectation from this is that the results available now can be extrapolated and a result given out that is both accurate and acceptable to both parties. But this is not true, we have already seen that in certain regions, one candidate will get almost all the votes, while the other gets nothing. This is the reason for Kibaki's overnight catching up with the ODM candidate.
That the ECK should exercise patience is especially important given the fact that the last published opinion polls, and the only published exit polls both showed a very small margin between the two candidates, and perhaps more significantly, a Mwai Kibaki lead.
This point is underscored by what seem to be very high turnouts in Central Province. Party agents in the region are understood to have used the voter registers to ensure near 100% turnouts in some areas, sending groups to collect truant voters and denying use of commercial facilities to all those whose fingers did not carry the blemish of the voting ink. But it is not just in Central Province that turnout figures were high. The same has been counted in parts of Nyanza and the Rift Valley, leading to speculation that the overall number of votes we are dealing with maybe in the ten million vote range. This would represent just over 70% turnout nationally, an improvement of about 5% on the national referendum's figures.
It is instructive that unlike wananchi or the media, who can easily retract a previously wrong report, the Electoral Commission must be certain before its pronouncements. It must also be perfectually neutral, displeasing both parties in equal measure and taking the long hard path to the official announcements. So until there is a scientific certainty to the election result, let's keep the peace and keep a lid on the unhelpful rumours. There is no need at all to escalate already sky-high tensions, soon we will find out what the collective has decided.
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I see many people saying that the votes counted now leave little left over, but look
Raila Odinga 3,496,691
Mwai Kibaki 3,348,112
Kalonzo Musyoka 568,739
This gives a total of just about 7.5m. There are those who are suggesting that there are only about 500,000 votes left in play, but this would mean that the total this election is 8 million, which gives a 56.3% turnout, far far lower than the referendum!
We do not know how it will end, it may even result in an even bigger ODM victory, but what Ruto and Raila are doing now is very damgerous.