Latest verified results show Azimio, Kenya Kwanza in close race
Azimio One Kenya presidential candidate Raila Odinga garnered 923,532 votes from the 40 constituencies that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) released yesterday. By contrast, UDA’s William Ruto was ahead after securing 1,187,210 votes.
The difference of only 263,678 votes is a pointer of how close the race is and that by today, the results pendulum can swing either way depending on the regions that will have their results verified by end of day, meaning it is too early to tell which coalition will carry the day.
Yesterday’s data only shows where the candidates performed well and where they were trailing their opponents. It also shows that both David Mwaure of Agano Party and George Wajackoyah of Roots Party were performing poorly. Their combined votes were less than the number of spoilt or rejected votes, which prompted Mwaure to concede defeat in the afternoon.
The latest batch of results indicate that the largest chunk of Raila’s votes came from Dagoretti North Constituency, where he bagged 56,535 votes against Ruto’s 25,764. The second largest chunk came from Westlands Constituency where he got 55,088 votes against Ruto’s 28,323.
This cemented his victory in the capital where Azimio also bagged the Senate and County Woman MP seat through Lawrence Sifuna and Esther Passaris respectively.
The third largest chuck of Raila’s votes came from Nyatike where he had a virtual clean sweep of 54,894 votes against a paltry 458 for the Deputy President.
Ruto clawed back some gains in Nairobi, with UDA’s Johnson Sakaja winning the governorship after beating Polycarp Igathe of Azimio. Igathe used Twitter, the social media platform, to concede defeat. So did Millicent Omanga, who lost the Woman Rep seat to Passaris.
In the presidential race, Ruto garnered the highest number of votes from Mwea, garnering 75,028 ballots against Raila’s 12,884. He also won decisively in Kiharu with 66,939 votes against Raila’s 13,114.
From the results released yesterday by IEBC vice chairperson Juliana Cherera, Ruto also performed well in Ainamoi with 56,781 votes against Raila’s 5,720.
IEBC had by last evening verified results from 184 constituencies and had 106 to go by 5pm. The electoral commission is expected name the winner of the presidential election today after night-long tallying and verification of votes from all the 290 constituencies.
