Kenyan media stopped broadcasting the provisional results of the country’s presidential poll, raising questions over the outcome of the vote as the counting process entered its fourth day on Friday. Meanwhile, the security situation in East Africa’s largest economy remains peaceful and secure, according to a press statement released by the inspector general of the national police service on Friday.
However, Kenya’s electoral officials have blamed the delay in announcing the final result of the country’s presidential election on candidates’ agents for slowing down the national tally of votes, CNN reports. Others are speculating that the voting system was hacked.
Tuesday’s election was largely peaceful but disputes over previous presidential votes have been followed by deadly violence, fuelling jitters as provisional results point to a tight race between frontrunners William Ruto and Raila Odinga.
As IEBC officials verify and tally the results, Kenyan TV channels have been carrying out their own count, based on the forms, but stopped doing so on Thursday, with around a million votes left to go.
The broadcasters have provided no explanation for the sudden halt in counting, which came as the IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati urged Kenyans not to worry about the different outcomes projected by various TV channels. He said the official results would be released by the IEBC, which has to publish the outcome by August 16. AFP quotes him as saying:
There should be no panic about the differences we are seeing on the media screens.
No presidential poll outcome has gone uncontested in Kenya since 2002, and the disputes have led to bloodshed in the past, either involving ethnic clashes or police violence.
In recent days, social media was flooded with varying information with regards to the results causing confusion to observers.
Kenyans voted in six elections on Tuesday, choosing a new president as well as senators, governors, lawmakers, woman representatives, and some 1 500 county officials.
