Counting of Kenyan election results has slowed down because of problems with the electronic systems. Returning officers were ordered to physically deliver paper copies of their constituency’s tallies to the counting centre in the capital. Election officials have urged patience. Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces trial at the International Criminal Court, has been leading in early presidential results declared from Monday’s tightly contested election. He is due to stand trial at The Hague next month for allegedly fuelling violence after the disputed 2007 election. He denies the charge. His closest rival is outgoing Prime Minister Raila Odinga. With provisional results in from more than 40% of polling stations earlier on Wednesday, Mr Odinga had 42% of the vote compared with Mr Kenyatta’s 53%.
… Late on Tuesday, the election commission announced that the spoiled ballots would count in the overall vote total, increasing the likelihood of a run-off between the top two candidates, news agencies report.
Mr Kenyatta’s running mate William Ruto, who is also facing a trial at the ICC, said foreign embassies may have influenced such a decision. “We want to believe that this is not an attempt to deny the Jubilee Coalition a first-round victory as is clearly now on the wall,” he is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
But the election commission now says a decision on what to do about the spoiled ballots will be taken after all other votes are counted, our correspondent reports. If no agreement is reached, one of the presidential candidates is bound to mount a legal challenge, he says.
As there are different types of spoiled ballots, a possible compromise would be to include those that were annulled simply because they had been put in the wrong box – for instance, in the parliamentary box rather the presidential box – while excluding a ballot paper on which a person had voted for two candidates, our reporter says.
Full Article: BBC News – Kenya elections: Electronic system slows count.
