Odinga and Ruto in tight race for presidency

 Former president Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto are in a very tight race as tallying of votes continues following the August 9 General elections.

According to the tallying by media houses as of Thursday mid-day, KTN has Odinga leading at 51 %, and Ruto at 49 %, Citizen TV had Odinga at 49.48 % and Ruto at 49.12% while NTV had Odinga at 50.80%  and Ruto at 48.52%.

The Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has in the 2022 elections made public the constituency forms 34A forms portal, which has accorded the media and other stakeholders the opportunity to be able to download the forms as they are uploaded by the presiding officers and do their own independent tallying.

In 2017, the Supreme Court of Kenya ruled that IEBC should make public Forms 34A.

The media council of Kenya has explained that the disparities in tallying among the respective media houses is because they are each downloading the forms randomly across the various counties.

The IEBC is still the only body with the mandate to announce the official election winners across all elective positions.

To win the presidential elections in the first round, the candidates would need to secure more than 50% of the total votes cast, and at least 25% of votes from 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties, otherwise, a run-off election must be held within 30 days, according to the constitution.

So far the elections have been peaceful including the campaign period and there is also commendable tolerance in the social media landscape.

Kenyans on social media are expressing confidence that the 2022 elections seem to be transparent and are confident that IEBC will deliver a credible election.

There was a total of 46,229 polling stations in the 2022 elections, and so far 46,112 Forms 34A have been received, which equates to 99.75 per cent.