(Nairobi) Kenyans flocked to polling stations at dawn to elect a new president on Tuesday, but also MPs and local elected officials in high-stakes elections for East Africa’s economic locomotive, hit by an increase in the cost of living.
Posted at 6:31 a.m.
The 22.1 million voters must vote six times to determine the political future of this country considered a democratic island in an unstable region, but which was also the scene of serious violence fifteen years ago.
The duel promises to be tight between the two main candidates for the presidency, figures from the political landscape. Raila Odinga, 77, a veteran of the government-backed opposition, takes on William Ruto, 55, a vice-president who is seen as a challenger.
From the financial center to the slums of Nairobi, as well as in several parts of the country, long queues formed in the darkness outside the polling stations, which opened at 6 a.m. (3 a.m. GMT).
The ballot took place mostly peacefully on this day declared a public holiday. The atmosphere was even festive in Kisumu, a large western city and bastion of Odinga, where motorcycle taxis blared their horns and passers-by their vuvuzelas.
“I came here at 4 a.m. (1 a.m. GMT) in the morning to vote, with a lot of hope and faith,” said Clara Otieno Opiyo, a 35-year-old vegetable vendor in central Kisumu, her son from 5 years old draped in the back.
Raila Odinga cast his ballot mid-morning in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, another of his strongholds, while his opponent slipped his ballot shortly after polls opened in Kosachei village near Eldoret, heart of his native Rift Valley.
New era
If neither of the two opponents, who know each other well for having been allies in the past, obtains more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday, Kenya will experience a second round in a presidential election for the very first time.
Whatever the outcome, the new president will mark history by not belonging to the Kikuyu community, the first in the country, which has controlled the top of the state for twenty years and from which the outgoing Uhuru Kenyatta comes – whom the Constitution prevented re-election after two terms.
Mr. Odinga, allied with Kenyatta since a surprise pact in 2018, is a Luo while Mr. Ruto is a Kalenjin—two other prominent communities.
In this country historically marked by tribal voting, some experts believe that this factor could fade this year in the face of economic challenges, as the soaring cost of living dominates the minds of some 50 million inhabitants.
The pandemic, then the war in Ukraine as well as a record drought, have hit this heavyweight on the continent hard, which despite dynamic growth (7.5% in 2021) remains very corrupt and unequal.
“We are suffering so much from inflation. Currently we cannot even cook our staple food which is ugali because there is no maize flour in the supermarkets,” said Alice Waithera, a 56-year-old social worker and voter in the financial hub. from Nairobi.
William Ruto, who sets himself up as a defender of the “resourceful”, hammered home his ambition to “reduce the cost of living”. Mr. Odinga has promised to make Kenya “a dynamic and global economy”, made up of a single “great tribe”.
Specter of violence
Historically, the ethnic component has fueled electoral conflicts, as in 2007-2008 when Mr. Odinga’s contestation of the results led to inter-community clashes killing more than 1,100 people.
Fifteen years have passed since this violence, but their specter continues to hover.
In 2017, dozens of people died in the crackdown on protests, after Mr Odinga again challenged the results of the vote—eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling.
“Voting should not be a matter of life and death, it is high time Kenya realizes that voting is like other exercises. In every competition there is a winner and a loser,” Hussein Kassim, a 35-year-old fuel exporter, told Eldoret.
Apart from an impressive flow of misinformation on social networks, the campaign was generally peaceful. Some 150,000 officers are to be deployed across the country, however.
On Tuesday morning, a few rare cases of disturbances linked to the use of biometric voter identification kits were reported, particularly in Nairobi.
Diplomatic sources told AFP they were hopeful that calm would prevail on Tuesday, but insisted, in this country marked by suspicion of fraud, on the issue of speed in the publication of the results.
The Electoral Commission, under extreme pressure, has until August 16 to declare the results.
The roughly 46,000 polling stations are due to close at 5 p.m. (2 p.m. GMT).