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    With Tears and Steel, Kenya’s ‘Hustler’ President Vanquishes His Foes

    William Ruto built a career on beating the odds. In his greatest triumph, he is expected to be inaugurated as Kenya’s fifth president on Tuesday.NAIROBI, Kenya — William Ruto wept when he won, falling to his knees in prayer after Kenya’s Supreme Court confirmed his presidential win last week, the climax of a bruising courtroom battle over the results of a hard-fought election.Aides patted the sobbing Mr. Ruto, as his wife, a Christian preacher, and his running mate knelt by his side, thankful that a bid to overturn his win from the Aug. 9 vote had been thwarted.On Tuesday Mr. Ruto, who has been Kenya’s vice president since 2013, will be inaugurated as the country’s fifth president.The outburst contrasted with the image of a leader better known for his steel than for his tears. Since he began his political ascent three decades ago, enlisting as an enforcer for an autocratic president, Mr. Ruto has developed a reputation as a wily operator with a talent for reinvention and an instinct for ruthless pragmatism.He survived arduous shadow battles with his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta. He won elections that he was widely predicted to lose. And he emerged as a free man from the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where Mr. Ruto had been charged with crimes against humanity, after witnesses changed their stories and the trial collapsed in 2016.“Ruto seems to thrive in going against the odds,” Macharia Munene, a political scientist at the United States International University in Nairobi, said. “Once he has garnered attention, he finds a way of separating himself, then comes out on top as a leader.”Supporters of Mr. Ruto celebrating in Nairobi on Monday.Ben Curtis/Associated PressThose qualities served Mr. Ruto especially well this past month. Not only did he vanquish his electoral rival, Raila Odinga, who had been favored to win by pollsters, but he also triumphed over Mr. Kenyatta, a former ally once so close to Mr. Ruto that they dressed in matching suits and ties.Mr. Kenyatta is now his embittered foe. After last week’s court decision, the departing president, who backed Mr. Odinga’s losing ticket, delivered a grievance-laced speech in which he refused to utter Mr. Ruto’s name, much less congratulate him on his win. It was the latest twist in a saga of loyalty and betrayal that has dominated Kenyan politics for over a decade.“I haven’t talked to him in months,” a chuckling Mr. Ruto told laughing supporters at his residence after the Supreme Court confirmed he would be replacing his former boss. “But shortly I will be putting a call to him so that we can have a conversation on the process of transition.”Already, Mr. Ruto has made soaring promises in eloquent speeches that his presidency will unlock the potential of Kenya, an East African economic powerhouse and regional anchor. But to Kenyans who look to his mixed record in office, blemished by violence and financial scandals, a Ruto presidency is a worrisome prospect.“He has so many unresolved controversies, which affects how much people are willing to trust and believe in him,” said George Kegoro, head of the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, a democracy-promotion organization. “That’s a problem.”Few doubt his political skills. On the campaign trail, Mr. Ruto loved to tell of his humble origins: his barefoot childhood in the Rift Valley; his first pair of shoes at age 15; the early adult years when he sold chickens by the roadside to scrape by. That underdog narrative lay at the heart of his populist pitch to the “hustler nation” — young Kenyans striving to succeed on modest means, as he once did.It was also code for a kind of class warfare. Unlike other Kenyan leaders, educated at elite Western schools or ushered into politics by gilded bloodlines, Mr. Ruto grew up in a remote village where he raised cows and sang in the choir. In a freewheeling, alcohol-soaked political culture, he is a teetotaler who rises early, prizes punctuality and is unabashed about his Christian faith, attributing his successes to “the hand of God.”Employees in an electronics store watching the live broadcast of the Supreme Court of Kenya’s judgment on the general elections in Nairobi on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo many ordinary Kenyans, that image resonated powerfully at a time of pandemic-induced hardship, said Mr. Munene, the analyst. “Everyone was suffering, yet the elite seemed to be doing fine,” he said.Many wealthy Kenyans, however, saw something different: “A thief and a murderer who is patently unsuitable to be president of this republic,” said Jerotich Seii, a one-time aid worker and Odinga voter, now a prominent Ruto supporter. “It’s a class thing.”Despite the slogan, Mr. Ruto was not the average “hustler.” He cut his teeth in politics in the early 1990s as a campaigner for Kenya’s longtime autocratic president, Daniel Arap Moi, a fellow ethnic Kalenjin. As minister for agriculture, then higher education, between 2008 and 2010, Mr. Ruto was seen an effective, hands-on leader, but no reformer: He sided with conservatives to oppose a new constitution that was approved in 2010.Along the way, he became very wealthy, growing a business empire that includes luxury hotels, a 15,000-acre ranch, a commercial farm and a huge poultry processing plant. He was implicated in corruption scandals, including accusations that he tried to grab land from a Nairobi school for a hotel parking lot — a case that is still before the courts.Mr. Ruto has always denied any wrongdoing — “I have been audited left, right, upside-down and inside-out” he said at a presidential debate in July — and many voters are willing to look past his wealth.“They are all crooks, we know that,” said Ms. Seii. “I’m going for the crook with a plan.”Mr. Ruto’s career has been shaped, to a large degree, by the International Criminal Court.In 2010 prosecutors accused Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta of leading the political violence that followed the disputed election of 2007 — the great trauma of recent Kenyan history, with over 1,200 people killed, and 600,000 others displaced, as the country threatened to tip into civil war.An opposition supporter being arrested in Kibera, a slum that is an opposition stronghold in Nairobi, in late 2007. Stephen Morrison/European Pressphoto AgencyThe I.C.C. indictment depicted Mr. Ruto as the godfather of mayhem in the Rift Valley, accusing him of distributing weapons, issuing kill-lists and telling supporters which houses to burn. But that case floundered badly at trial, ultimately managing only to unite Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta, and transforming Kenyan politics.The two leaders ran on a joint ticket in the 2013 election, with Mr. Kenyatta as president, portraying the court as a tool of Western oppression and rallying other African leaders to their cause.On the ground in Kenya, witnesses disappeared or changed their stories amid accusations of bribery and intimidation, and by 2016 the trials of both men had entirely collapsed.Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta became an apparently unstoppable force. Before they were re-elected in 2017, they finished each other’s sentences in interviews and joshed in a jokey campaign video, drawing comparisons with the Obama-Biden partnership in the United States.But a year later, it all fell apart. In 2018, Mr. Kenyatta signed a pact that switched his loyalties to Mr. Odinga, triggering a shadow war inside Kenya’s government.Uhuru Kenyatta, in a red shirt, as a presidential candidate, next to his running mate, Mr. Ruto, in a yellow shirt, at a rally in Nairobi in 2013. Now, they are bitter foes.Pete Muller for The New York TimesMr. Ruto started to build a political base in Mount Kenya, Mr. Kenyatta’s political backyard.Mr. Kenyatta used the state apparatus to thwart his deputy’s ambitions.Last year, a senior Kenyan government official made public a list of Mr. Ruto’s assets. Security agencies began to obstruct his movements. His supporters came under unusual scrutiny by the tax authorities, said a senior Western official who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive issues.As the election drew near, the main news media outlets tilted their coverage in favor of Mr. Kenyatta’s ally, Mr. Odinga.And on Aug. 15, just before Mr. Ruto was declared the winner, a delegation of senior police, military and presidency officials tried to subvert his victory quietly, the head of the electoral commission, Wafula Chebukati, told the Supreme Court last week. The real test for Mr. Ruto may come when things aren’t going his way. He insists there’s nothing to worry about.“We are competitors, not enemies,” he assured his rivals after his victory was confirmed last week. “I pledge to make Kenya a country for everyone.”A poster of Mr. Ruto in Eldoret, Kenya, last month.Ed Ram/Getty ImagesAbdi Latif Dahir More

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    Kenya’s Supreme Court Upholds Presidential Election Results

    In a sweeping rejection of claims that the Aug. 9 vote had been rigged, the court confirmed Vice President William Ruto as the country’s fifth president.NAIROBI, Kenya — The Supreme Court of Kenya on Monday upheld the election of William Ruto as president, ending a courtroom battle over disputed results from the Aug. 9 election and confirming Mr. Ruto as the fifth president of a country often seen as an indicator of democratic strength in Africa.In a lengthy judgment that rejected the claims by Mr. Ruto’s rival, Raila Odinga, that the vote had been rigged, Chief Justice Martha Koome swept aside claims of ballot stuffing, computer hacking and falsified results that she variously described as “sensationalism,” “hot air” and “a wild-goose chase that yielded nothing of value.”The unanimous verdict means that Mr. Ruto, the charismatic and populist vice president who pitched his campaign at Kenya’s “hustlers,” or young strivers, could be inaugurated as early as Sept. 13.Supporters of Mr. Ruto erupted in celebration as the verdict was announced, flooding the streets in towns across the Rift Valley, his main stronghold. Addressing supporters at his mansion in Karen, outside Nairobi, a jubilant and smiling Mr. Ruto lauded the court, extended a conciliatory hand to his rivals and promised to unite the country.“We are not enemies,” he said. “Let us unite to make Kenya a nation that everyone will be proud to call home.The court’s decision was yet another stinging defeat for Mr. Odinga, 77, a political veteran making his fifth bid for the presidency, having lost the first four. The election was hard fought: The court confirmed that Mr. Ruto had won 50.5 percent of the vote to Mr. Odinga’s 48.9 percent, a difference of about 233,000 votes. In a statement, Mr. Odinga said that while he respected the court’s verdict, he “vehemently” disagreed with it. “We find it incredible that the judges found against us on all nine grounds” and on “occasion resulted to unduly exaggerated language to refute our claim,” he said. At hearings last week, Mr. Odinga’s lawyers argued that Wafula Chebukati, the chairman of Kenya’s election commission, had swung the vote in favor of Mr. Ruto by conspiring with foreign agents who hacked into the commission’s computer system.President-elect William Ruto of Kenya speaks in Nairobi after the Supreme Court upheld his victory on Monday.Monicah Mwangi/ReutersBut Chief Justice Koome, flanked by six other judges, systematically demolished those claims in a judgment that took nearly 90 minutes to read out.The court found “no credible evidence” that the electoral computer system had been interfered with or hacked, or that the technology employed by the commission failed to meet standards of integrity.Chief Justice Koome dismissed claims by four of the country’s seven election commissions which dramatically disowned the election result minutes before it was announced. “Are we to nullify an election on the basis of a last-minute boardroom rupture?” she said. “This we cannot do.”And she offered scathing criticism of the most lurid rigging accusations, which she said were based on forgeries and hearsay, and warned lawyers against introducing sworn statements that were demonstrably based on “falsehoods.”Following the court proceeding by television in Kamagut village, about 200 miles north of Nairobi, where Mr. Ruto grow up, Esther Cherobon joined in the scenes of exultation. “I am very excited that someone who knows me by name, who never wore a shoe to school, has become president,” she said in a phone interview.It was “a miracle” that Mr. Ruto, whose campaign made much of his humble background and early years selling chicken on the roadside, had won, she added.Equally remarkable is Mr. Ruto’s rise to the top following accusations that he once committed crimes against humanity. A decade ago, Mr. Ruto was facing trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which indicted him on charges of orchestrating communal violence after the 2007 election that resulted in over 1,200 deaths.The trial collapsed in 2016 after the Kenyan government withdrew its cooperation and key witnesses recanted their testimony. But the court did not formally acquit Mr. Ruto, then the country’s vice-president. The judgment on Monday was delivered to a courtroom packed with lawyers less than a month after a fiercely fought electoral battle that was closely followed across Africa and the world.Kenya’s stability matters to the region and beyond. The economic powerhouse of East Africa, it has emerged as a key Western ally in the fight against terrorism, a burgeoning technology hub and a stable democracy in a region shaped by autocrats and conflicts.Some schools in the capital closed, and the police closed roads leading to the court, but worries of a backlash from Mr. Odinga’s supporters did not immediately materialize. In Kisumu, a major Odinga stronghold in western Kenya, traffic flowed and businesses reopened soon after the verdict was announced.Supporters of Raila Odinga in Nairobi last month. The court battle that unfolded in the past week had threatened to erode Kenya’s democratic foundations.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhile some residents said they were shocked by the judges’ decision, they voted to abide by it. “Life has to go on,” Maurice Ogange, a motorcycle taxi driver, said by phone.That reaction stoked hopes that Kenya’s closely watched election, although messy and hotly disputed like the country’s previous three votes, could yet prove to be an example to the region.In contrast to recent elections, the vote was largely peaceful, although the chaotic scenes as the results were declared on Aug. 16, and the often sensational rigging accusations made in court last week, risked undermining voter confidence in the democratic system.When it became clear the result was going against Mr. Odinga, the top election official for his coalition denounced the vote-counting center as a “crime scene,” then rampaged through it with other supporters, clashing with security officials.It was not lost on anyone that the four rebel electoral commissioners were appointed last year by Kenya’s current president, Uhuru Kenyatta — Mr. Ruto’s political nemesis and Mr. Odinga’s ally.But the Supreme Court justices’ evenhanded treatment of the sensitive case over the past two weeks appeared to underscore the growing strength of Kenya’s senior judiciary. The judges narrowed a slew of accusations down to nine key questions, including whether Mr. Ruto had attained over 50 percent of the vote, avoiding a runoff. Since Friday they spent three sleepless nights to reach a unanimous decision, the deputy chief justice, Philomena Mwilu, said in brief remarks on Monday.“Now, you allow us to go home and sleep,” she said before the hearing adjourned.Other key institutions, however, emerged from the election damaged or discredited.While the verdict largely vindicated the election commissioner, Mr. Chebukati, he was not totally without fault in the eyes of the court. It suggested he overstepped his mandate in delivering the final result without backing from his own commissioners.The court also heard disturbing testimony that senior police, defense and security officials had tried to pressure Mr. Chebukati into denying victory to Mr. Ruto just hours before the result was announced, suggesting a dangerous rift in key state institutions.Despite the defeat, Mr. Odinga’s legacy as a champion of democracy remains undiminished. For decades he was the outsider in Kenya’s politics, a dogged opposition leader who served years in prison under the authoritarian leader Daniel arap Moi, who in 1982 accused him of fomenting an attempted coup.This time, however, Mr. Odinga was running as an establishment candidate thanks to a political pact that he sealed with Mr. Kenyatta in 2018. But that deal, known as the “handshake,” dismally failed to deliver the votes Mr. Odinga needed to win.Mr. Ruto’s candidacy was also riven with contradictions. A wealthy businessman, he cast himself as an underdog, playing up his humble past, and largely ignored that he has been in power as vice president under Mr. Kenyatta since 2013.But his appeal to what he called the “hustlers,” the millions of young Kenyans who, like his younger self, were striving to make ends meet, struck a chord with many.Even so, many young Kenyans were turned off by both candidates. Turnout fell to 65 percent of the country’s 22.1 million registered voters, down from 80 percent in 2017.Presidential ballot boxes taken to the court after the justices ordered ballots from some 15 polling stations to be recounted.Daniel Irungu/EPA, via Shutterstock More

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    How Raila Odinga Lost His Stronghold, Then Kenya’s Presidency

    In his fifth, and possibly last, bid for president, Raila Odinga failed to enthuse a crucial bloc of voters in his own backyard that would have catapulted him to the top job.KISUMU, Kenya — For decades, Kenya’s veteran opposition politician Raila Odinga has been the chief political power broker in the western counties around Lake Victoria, relying on his fellow Luo ethnic voters to back him in five successive elections for president.They stuck with the man they affectionately call “Baba,” or “father,” as he challenged entrenched corruption and fell short of the presidency four times — twice in contested votes too close to call.But the loyalty of his Luo stronghold came into question last week, as Mr. Odinga, 77, was pronounced the loser of his fifth, and possibly last, bid for the presidency. In an election with over 14 million voters, the tally — which he said he plans to challenge in court — showed him only about 233,000 votes short of his rival, William Ruto, the current vice president.But he almost certainly would have clinched the prize if over 600,000 registered voters in four Luo-dominated counties had not failed to turn out. Many residents said in interviews that he had lost their support because he and his party endorsed wealthy party cronies and his own relatives — rather than young aspirants — for seats in governorship, Parliament and county assembly, suggesting that he had succumbed to the corrupt machine politics he had long opposed.“Raila was once the man of the people,” said John Okello, 38, a community organizer who lives in the low-income Obunga area in Kisumu, a city of 1.1 million that hugs the lake. “But that’s no more.”John Okello, a community leader in Obunga in Kisumu County, said he once considered Mr. Odinga a man of the people, but “no more.” Brian Otieno for The New York TimesEthnicity has shaped Kenyan politics for decades, leading to rampant corruption and disenfranchisement and, sometimes around elections, full-blown violence. But for the first time this year, millions of voters crossed ethnic lines, shifting the political dynamics in a nail-bitter election that ended with four of the seven national election commissioners walking out and declaring they could not stand by the final tally, only minutes before the head of the election commission pronounced the results.The ethnic shift was particularly evident in Central Kenya, where voters from the Kikuyu community — Kenya’s largest ethnic group — did not heed the guidance of President Uhuru Kenyatta, a fellow Kikuyu, who had anointed Mr. Odinga as his successor. Instead, voters in Central Kenya overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Mr. Ruto, an ethnic Kalenjin.“The presumption that many people have always made is that voters from one community will sway a certain way,” said Ken O. Opalo, a political scientist at Georgetown University, in Washington, who studies Kenya’s politics and traveled there during election season. “But there was both fatigue and dissatisfaction with Kenyatta’s performance, and William Ruto’s message resonated with many among the Kikuyu, which partly helped break the cycle of ethnic voting.”For Mr. Odinga, the failure to elicit excitement in his own region began before Election Day. During the primaries, his party, the Orange Democratic Movement, or O.D.M., installed party stalwarts as candidates, passing over up-and-comers.During the primary elections, when party members were voting, allegations of corruption, rigging and bullying marred the process, according to several party members, officials and candidates who vied for positions.Some of those who felt cheated decided to run as independent candidates, only to be pressured to withdraw. When they declined, they said they were ostracized, harassed and attacked.“We were accused of being anti-Baba or being the enemies of the party,” said Sospeter Obungu Owich, an ethnic Luo who said he ran as an independent candidate for a county assembly seat in Kisumu after party officials shunted him aside. He said he was attacked twice by “goons” while campaigning, and that two staff members were injured.Candidates like Sospeter Obungu Owich ran as independent candidates after they were pushed aside by Mr. Odinga’s party. Brian Otieno for The New York TimesPatrick Ayiecho Olweny, the chairman of Mr. Odinga’s party in Kisumu County, acknowledged the “harassment and the political violence” directed at Mr. Owich and others, and blamed it on “a generation of hostile youth” whom the party cannot control.He also admitted that the primary process had been fraught with political patronage and vote buying, but he blamed the party’s top brass in the capital, Nairobi, for mismanaging the whole process, saying, “It’s a total mess.”Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham who has written extensively about politics in Kenya, said that for Mr. Odinga, “the claim to be a kind of pro-democratic opposition leader promoting change was undermined by not being able to organize his own party in a democratic way.”“Some of those disgruntled voters were less likely to come to the polls to vote for him as a presidential candidate,” said Mr. Cheeseman, who came to Nairobi to observe the election.By contrast, Mr. Ruto’s party, the United Democratic Alliance, managed its primaries better, with Mr. Ruto himself interceding to appease some disgruntled candidates, Mr. Cheeseman said.In the presidential election, turnout in the four Luo-dominated counties — Kisumu, Homa Bay, Siaya and Migori — was 72 percent — around 20 percent lower than the election in 2013. Turnout was also lower on the coast in Mombasa County, another major Odinga stronghold, where just 44 percent of voters turned out, compared to 66 percent in 2013.Mr. Ruto, 55, not only swept the Central Kenya vote — he even won at the president’s own polling station — but also managed to bring out almost 80 percent of voters in many counties in his stronghold in the Rift Valley. The four counties with the highest turnout in the August vote — Bomet, Kericho, West Pokot and Elgeyo Marakwet — all went to Mr. Ruto.Broken windows at a supermarket that was targeted during protests in Kisumu on the night Mr. Ruto was announced as president-elect. Protests have since subsided.Brian Otieno for The New York TimesBesides the bruising primary process and depressed turnout, Mr. Odinga’s campaign was also hobbled by a lack of clear messaging, experts say. Mr. Odinga had surprised his followers when in 2018 he made a pact with his long-term nemesis, President Kenyatta — an alliance famously known as “the handshake.” Critics labeled Mr. Odinga a “project” of the establishment, and he lost his claim to outsider status.In contrast, Mr. Ruto, a wealthy businessman and the country’s vice-president, cast himself as an ally of the country’s poorest, or what he called “hustler nation,” employing a wheelbarrow as his party’s symbol.Some of Mr. Odinga’s supporters lamented in interviews that after his alliance with President Kenyatta in 2018, Mr. Odinga did not return to his home base to engage young people on their concerns, including unemployment, or assist families that suffered from police brutality.After Mr. Odinga announced he would challenge the vote in court, initial protests in Kisumu quickly subsided and in the days since, many said in interviews that he should concede to Mr. Ruto and work with him.“Now that he’s lost the presidency, he should also get on the wheelbarrow movement and we move on together,” Alphonse Onyango, a 30-year-old security guard, said.The low-income Obunga area in Kisumu, part of Mr. Odinga’s stronghold.Brian Otieno for The New York Times More

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    Kenya Starts to Digest the Result of a Contested Election

    Vice President William Ruto was declared the winner, beating Raila Odinga, but Mr. Odinga has rejected the results A sharply divided electorate and uncertainty over how the apparent loser will react have roiled a nation pivotal to East Africa’s stability.KISUMU, Kenya — After a tumultuous political day in Kenya, the country on Tuesday began to come to terms with the reality of a new president-elect, William Ruto, a sharply divided electorate and uncertainty over how the election’s apparent loser would react to defeat in a nation pivotal for the economy and stability of East Africa.Mr. Ruto, who is currently the vice president, moved quickly on Monday in a speech and news conference to cement his new status after being declared the winner of last Tuesday’s election with 50.49 percent of the vote. He called for unity and said that there was “no room for vengeance” after a hard-fought campaign. He was greeted on Tuesday with a string of flattering newspaper headlines in Kenya.In a choreographed sequence of announcements, he also offered an olive branch to supporters of his main opponent, Raila Odinga, a former prime minister and opposition leader who had been thwarted four previous times in his attempts to win the presidency.But two major factors served to keep the electorate on edge. The first was a worrying split in the electoral commission, four of whose seven members said on Monday that they could not accept the outcome given the opaque nature of the vote counting. Their statement was made even before Mr. Ruto was pronounced the winner and is likely to feature in any court challenge to the election result.The second is Mr. Odinga’s silence. He is scheduled to hold a news conference later on Tuesday, but one of his leading aides described the election headquarters on Monday as a “crime scene.”Previous elections in Kenya, a country whose democracy is closely watched across Africa and farther afield, have led to orchestrated violence.After a 2007 election, at least 1,200 people were killed and about 600,000 others were forced to flee their homes. This time, religious and civic leaders, as well as much of the political class and the security forces, have emphasized the importance of accepting results and resolving disputes through the courts.“We are waiting for Baba to speak,” said Wycliffe Oburu, a 23-year-old supporter of Mr. Odinga, using the name by which the veteran opposition leader is often called. “We cannot lose this election.”Riot police officers patrolling Nairobi on Tuesday following the announcement of the results of Kenya’s presidential election.Thomas Mukoya/ReutersOn Tuesday morning the electoral commission formally declared Mr. Ruto president-elect in a special edition of the government’s Kenya Gazette, in a move apparently intended to underscore the legality of the results announced a day earlier.Many supporters of Mr. Odinga view Mr. Ruto and his appeal to Kenya, a country Mr. Ruto calls a “hustler nation,” with extreme suspicion. And for voters in western Kenya, an ethnic stronghold for Mr. Odinga where many people say that they have been excluded from presidential power since independence, the announcement on Monday of Mr. Ruto’s win stung.In towns along the eastern edge of Kisumu County in western Kenya, the soot of burned tires, as well as stones and sticks, were strewn across the streets on Tuesday, evidence of protests the night before. Large rocks and boulders could also be seen along a major highway that runs from Kisumu, a city on the shore of Lake Victoria, to Busia, which is near the border with Uganda.Protesters on that highway clashed with the police overnight, according to witnesses and young men crowded at bus stops and shops on Tuesday in anticipation of Mr. Odinga’s speech. There were no other reports of clashes, though an election officer in Embakasi, an area east of the capital, Nairobi, was found dead after going missing, newspapers reported on Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether his death was linked to the voting.Key to any challenge to the result will be any evidence that the voting or the count was significantly flawed. Mr. Odinga challenged the result of the 2017 election, which he lost to Uhuru Kenyatta, in the Supreme Court, which ruled that the election should be annulled and held anew. Three months later, Mr. Kenyatta won again, though Mr. Odinga had asked his supporters to boycott the vote. In a move that spoke to the shifting alliances that are a hallmark of Kenya’s politics, Mr. Kenyatta supported Mr. Odinga this time around.A statement on Tuesday by the respected Election Observation Group, which comprises civic and faith-based groups, could serve to make Mr. Odinga’s task more difficult. The group did its own analysis of the published results and concluded that they were broadly accurate.The detailed statement concluded that the results the group had seen were “consistent” with those given by the electoral commission.Abdi Latif Dahir More

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    Kenya Elects New President, but Disputes Erupt

    Kenya is often held up as a beacon of democracy in Africa, but as the latest election showed, it is not always pretty. Disputes started even before a winner was named.NAIROBI, Kenya — On a continent where military coups and rubber stamp elections have proliferated in recent years, Kenya stands out.Despite its flaws and endemic corruption, the East African nation and economic powerhouse has steadily grown into a symbol of what is possible, its democracy underpinned by a strong Constitution and its hard-fought elections an example to other African nations seeking to carve a path away from autocracy. But Kenya has just hit a speed bump.On Monday, a winner was declared in its latest presidential election, ending an unpredictable battle that had millions of Kenyans glued to their televisions and smartphones as the results rolled in. William Ruto, the president-elect, beamed as he addressed a hall filled with roaring supporters, lauding the “very historic, democratic occasion.”Vice President William Ruto of Kenya was named the winner of the country’s presidential election. Before the announcement, four out of the country’s seven election commissioners refused to verify the results.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the losing candidate, Raila Odinga, rejected the result even before it was announced. A fracas erupted in the hall where Mr. Ruto had been speaking, and where the votes had been counted, sending chairs and fists flying. And four electoral commissioners stormed out, casting doubt on a result that is almost certain to end up in court.And so the election hangs in the balance, scrutinized not just at home but across a continent where Kenya’s rambunctious democracy is among those that are viewed as indicators of progress.“We do not have the luxury to look back, we do not have the luxury to point fingers,” Mr. Ruto said. “We must close ranks to work together.”It started out as a day of hope.Early in the morning, several thousand people began packing into the giant hall in a Nairobi suburb to hear the election results, following an arduous six-day count that had the country on tenterhooks.Mr. Ruto before the announcement of the results of Kenya’s presidential election on Monday.Monicah Mwangi/ReutersMr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga had been neck-and-neck throughout the count, sometimes separated by as few as 7,000 votes, according to unofficial news media tallies. Those razor-thin margins left many nervous: Although its democracy is robust, Kenya’s elections can be vicious, and its last three contests were marred by disputed results that led to protracted crises, court cases and street violence that in 2007 killed over 1,200 people.Chastened by those failures, the electoral commission had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure a clean vote. Within 24 hours of polls closing last Tuesday evening, it had posted to its website images showing the results from nearly every polling station — over 46,000 of them.But as Wafula Chebukati, the chief electoral commissioner, prepared to announce the winner on Monday, one of Mr. Odinga’s top aides called an impromptu news conference outside.“This was the most mismanaged election in Kenya’s history,” Saitabao Ole Kanchory told reporters in a flurry of invective that described the counting center as “a crime scene” and called on those in charge “to be arrested.”Moments later, pandemonium erupted inside the hall.Supporters of Mr. Odinga, including Mr. Ole Kanchory, stormed the dais, throwing chairs on the floor and clashing with security officials brandishing truncheons. Foreign diplomats and election observers fled to a backstage area — but a choir that had been belting out gospel songs for much of the day continued to sing.A Kenyan police officer firing tear gas at protesters who set tires on fire in Kisumu on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOnce the situation calmed, Mr. Chebukati emerged to deliver a short speech in which he noted that two of his commissioners had been injured in the melee — and others harassed, “arbitrarily arrested” or disappeared — before proceeding to announce the results.Mr. Ruto received 50.49 percent of votes, he said, against 48.85 percent for Mr. Odinga, a difference of just 233,211 votes but enough to avoid a runoff.In a speech that appeared intended to project authority and offer reassurance, Mr. Ruto thanked his supporters and vowed to work for the good of Kenya. He promised to set aside the bitterness of the campaign — and the chaotic scenes minutes earlier — to concentrate on the country’s flailing economy.“There is no room for vengeance,” Mr. Ruto said, flanked by his wife and by his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua. “Our country is at a stage where we need all hands on deck to move it forward. We do not have the luxury to look back.”Celebrations erupted in the streets of Eldoret, a stronghold for Mr. Ruto in the Rift Valley, where there was a deafening cacophony of horns, whistles and chants filling the downtown area.But in much of the country, his victory was overshadowed by a major development: Four of the seven electoral commissioners refused to verify the vote, defying Mr. Chebukati and decamping to a luxury hotel where they denounced “the opaque nature” of the final phase of the count.Those commissioners, it turned out, had been appointed by Mr. Odinga’s most prominent ally in the race, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is barred by term limits from running again.Speaking to journalists a few hours later, Mr. Ruto dismissed their declaration as a “side show.” Under Kenyan law, he said, Mr. Chebukati alone is responsible for declaring the winner.“Legally, constitutionally, the four commissioners pose no threat at all to the legality of the declaration,” Mr. Ruto said.Supporters of Raila Odinga protesting in Kibera after Mr. Ruto was declared president-elect.Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesStill, the drama suggested that a day that should have signaled the end of the presidential contest might end up being just another chapter in the nail-biter race that has had Kenyans on the edge of their seats since the vote on Tuesday.The candidates were a study in contrasts.Mr. Odinga, 77, a leftist from one of Kenya’s most storied political dynasties, made his first bid for the presidency in 1997. He ran three more times, always losing, before trying again this year.Although he did once serve as prime minister, Mr. Odinga’s electoral defeats embodied the broader frustrations of his ethnic group, the Luo, which has never controlled the Kenyan presidency in all the years since the nation gained independence from Britain in 1963.Mr. Ruto, 55, the country’s vice president and a wealthy businessman, cast himself as champion of Kenya’s “hustler nation” — the disillusioned, mostly young strivers struggling to gain a foothold. He frequently told voters about his humble origins, including a barefoot childhood and an early career selling chickens on the side of a busy highway.That image contrasted with Mr. Ruto’s considerable wealth, which has grown during his political career to include a luxury hotel, thousands of acres of land and a large poultry processing plant.While the “hustler” pitch resonated powerfully with some Kenyans, others just shrugged. Just 40 percent of Kenyans under 35 registered to vote in this election, and the 65 percent turnout was sharply down from the 80 percent reported in the 2017 election.Mr. Ruto, center left, and his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua, center right, after the election results were announced.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe low turnout appeared to be a rejection of what many saw as a bad choice between candidates from their country’s discredited political elite.In voting for Mr. Ruto, millions of Kenyans overlooked the charges he once faced at the International Criminal Court, which a decade ago accused him of whipping up the storm of violence after the 2007 election that nearly pushed Kenya into a civil war.The charges included murder, persecution and forcing people to leave their homes, but the case collapsed in 2016. The Kenyan government — Mr. Ruto was vice president — engaged in what the court said was “witness interference and political meddling.”Mr. Ruto was running not just against Mr. Odinga but, in effect, against his own boss, Mr. Kenyatta, whom he accused of betrayal for backing Mr. Odinga.Instead of delivering votes for his chosen successor, Mr. Kenyatta suffered a humiliating rebuke from voters in his heartland, the Mount Kenya region, where ethnic Kikuyus rejected his allies across the board. Even at the polling station where Mr. Kenyatta cast his vote on Tuesday, Mr. Ruto scored a sweeping majority, the results showed.Debilitating economic troubles provided a bleak backdrop to Tuesday’s vote. The tourism-reliant economy has been battered in recent years, first by the coronavirus pandemic, then by Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which caused food and fuel prices to rise even more amid a global downturn.“Maize flour, cooking oil, cooking gas — everything is going up,” Abzed Osman, an actor who also works in tourism, said as he stood in line to vote on Tuesday in the Nairobi district of Kibera, Africa’s largest shantytown.By Monday evening in Kisumu County, one of Mr. Odinga’s strongholds in western Kenya, hundreds of protesters who had been eagerly awaiting the results began demonstrating and burning tires, witnesses said.Hours later a spokesman for Mr. Odinga, Dennis Onsarigo, said the candidate planned to address the nation on Tuesday.The police fired tear gas as people protested the election results in Kisumu.Ed Ram/Getty ImagesDeclan Walsh More

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    Kenyans Await Results as Votes Are Counted in Presidential Race

    Conflicting estimates of which candidate was ahead suggested a very tight race. Official results are expected to take several days.NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyans waited anxiously on Wednesday for the results of their presidential election, the most closely fought in years, amid conflicting estimates of which candidate was ahead.Unofficial tallies by several Kenyan news outlets put William Ruto, the country’s vice president, who campaigned as the champion of Kenya’s “hustlers” — struggling young people — at least three percentage points ahead of his rival, Raila Odinga.But at least one major news organization put Mr. Odinga, a former political detainee who later became prime minister and is making his fifth run for the presidency, ahead by a similar margin in the balloting held on Tuesday.The conflicting estimates, based on preliminary counts of fewer than half of all votes, only confirmed that the race to lead Kenya, an East African powerhouse struggling through a grinding economic crisis, was too close to call.A campaign billboard for Raila Odinga and his running mate, Martha Karua, in Nairobi on Wednesday.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe period between voting and results is especially delicate in Kenya, where it has been a focus of vote-rigging accusations. The last three presidential elections ended in chaos after Mr. Odinga, the losing candidate in each of those contests, claimed to have been cheated. In 2007, that dispute triggered widespread violence in which over 1,200 people were killed.By Wednesday evening, 24 hours after polls closed, the national election commission reported that 99 percent of results from all polling stations had been electronically submitted — and were publicly available on the commission’s website.But those results came in the form of about 45,000 images, all handwritten tally sheets, which greatly slowed the task of determining the overall result. On top of that, electoral officials said it could take several days more to declare a winner because they must verify every electronic image against its paper original — a process that had not even begun on Wednesday evening.However, there is likely to be at least an unofficial result by Thursday, when news organizations are expected to have completed their private tallies of the entire vote.Ordinary Kenyans, meanwhile, waited with bated breath.A member of the electoral commission with a ballot box, on Wednesday in Kiambu County, Kenya.Fredrik Lerneryd/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn small towns throughout the southern part of the Rift Valley, where ethnic violence broke out after the 2007 election, markets and bus stops were nearly empty in anticipation of fresh trouble, and many businesses and restaurants were closed. Some people who had stayed behind said they had sent their families away to keep them safe and had remained behind to watch out for their properties. In Nakuru, the biggest city in the Rift Valley, motorcycle taxi drivers argued about who had won. In nearby Molo, young men clustered around a newspaper stand to scrutinize headlines about the race.And at her home outside Eldoret, Grace Nyambura flipped through the TV news stations and incessantly scrolled through her smartphone, checking for the latest indications of a result. She had sent her three children to stay in the city of Eldoret, fearing an outbreak of violence. “We cannot sleep,” said Ms. Nyambura, 36, who left her work tending a plot of avocados and maize plants to follow the news. “These results have taken over our lives,” she added. “We need to know how things will end.”Not everyone was so engaged. The head of the election commission, Wafula Chebukati, said turnout would exceed 65 percent — higher than the commission’s estimate of 60 percent on Tuesday, but still considerably below the 80 percent figure of the last election.Soaring food prices combined with disillusionment at the choice of candidates seem to have persuaded some Kenyans to stay at home. Although their images are strikingly different, Mr. Ruto, 55, and Mr. Odinga, 77, are both products of Kenya’s calcified political elite, which is notorious for its shifting alliances and endemic corruption.“I just feel like there’s no change,” said Florence Wangari, 30, an event planner in Nakuru who opted to catch up with some work on Tuesday, a public holiday, instead of “wasting time in line” to vote.Like others, Ms. Wangari pointed to the high unemployment rate and the government’s failure to deliver decent education and health care. It feels as if “there’s nothing that my vote is going to change,” she said.Even so, Mr. Ruto appeared to have broken through in some areas with his appeal to frustrated “hustlers,” a novelty in a country where political choices are often shaped by ethnic loyalties.Early results showed him polling strongly in the coastal region, where Mr. Odinga hoped to shore up his base, and, crucially, in Mount Kenya, the crucible of Kenyan politics.Using a projector to follow the counting of votes, on Wednesday in Nairobi.Thomas Mukoya/ReutersIn recent years, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was barred by term limits from running again this year, had a falling-out with Mr. Ruto, his running mate in the last two elections, and forged an alliance with Mr. Odinga, his adversary in those contests.Mr. Odinga had been counting on that realignment to boost his support in the central Mount Kenya region, primary home of the Kikuyu ethnic group that includes Mr. Kenyatta and has dominated Kenyan politics for decades.But initial results showed Mr. Odinga polling disappointingly in that area — a blow to his electoral fortunes but also an implicit rejection of Mr. Kenyatta, whose extensive business interests in the area have become a source of popular resentment.As the unofficial counts progressed, prominent supporters in both camps claimed their candidate was emerging victorious. But others appealed to members of the public to band together and crowdsource a tallying effort — and help to figure out who their next president will be.Declan Walsh More

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    Voting Is Over in Kenya’s Election. Here’s What Comes Next

    The two front-runners for the presidency — one making his fifth attempt — said victory was within reach. But a dispute over the results seems inevitable, and the next phase could be turbulent.NAIROBI, Kenya — A wave of relief tinged with jubilation washed across Kenya on Tuesday as its hotly contested presidential election passed largely peacefully after months of bitter jostling and mud slinging. Supporters feted one of the front-runners, Raila Odinga, at his Nairobi stronghold, while his rival, William Ruto, praised the majesty of democracy after casting his ballot before dawn.But as the voting ended, a new battle was likely beginning.The close of polls saw Kenya’s election shift into a new and unpredictable phase that, if previous polls are a guide, could be rocky. Past elections have been followed by accusations of vote-rigging, protracted courtroom wrangling, bouts of street violence and, in 2017, a shocking murder mystery.It could take weeks, even months, before a new president is sworn in.“People just don’t trust the system,” Charles Owuiti, a factory manager, said as he waited to cast his ballot in Nairobi, the line snaking through a crowded schoolyard.Still, the corrosive ethnic politics that framed previous electoral contests have been dialed down. In the Rift Valley, the scene of prior electoral clashes, fewer people than in the previous years fled their homes fearing they might be attacked.A large crowd filled the streets in support of Raila Odinga as he cast his ballot in Kenya’s presidential election.Daniel Irungu/EPA, via ShutterstockInstead, Kenyans streamed into polling stations across the country, some in the predawn darkness, to choose not just their president, but also parliamentarians and local leaders. Among the four candidates for president, the vast majority of voters opted for either Mr. Odinga, a 77-year-old opposition leader running for the fifth time, or Mr. Ruto, the outgoing vice president and self-declared champion of Kenya’s “hustler nation” — its frustrated youth.“Baba! Baba!” yelled young men who crushed around Mr. Odinga’s vehicle in Kibera, on the outskirts of Nairobi and said to be Africa’s largest slum. They used his nickname, which means “father.” The septuagenarian leader struggled to keep his feet as he was swept into a polling station.Mr. Ruto made a show of apparent humility while casting his vote. “Moments like this is when the mighty and the powerful come to the realization that the simple and ordinary eventually make the choice,” he told reporters.But for many Kenyans, that wasn’t a choice worth making. The electoral commission estimated voter turnout at 60 percent of the country’s 22 million voters — a huge drop from the 80 percent turnout of the 2017 election, and a sign that many Kenyans, perhaps stung by economic hardship or jaded by endemic corruption, preferred to stay home.“Either way, there’s no hope,” said Zena Atitala, an unemployed tech worker, outside a voting station in Kibera. “Of the two candidates, we are choosing the better thief.”Anger at the soaring cost of living was palpable. Battered by the double-punch of the pandemic and the Ukraine war, Kenya’s economy has reeled under rising prices of food and fuel this year. The departing government, led by President Uhuru Kenyatta, sought to ease the hardship with flour and gasoline subsidies. But it can barely afford them, given Kenya’s huge debt to external lenders like China.No matter who wins this election, economists say, they will face harsh economic headwinds.William Ruto, the current vice president who is making a run for the top job, greeting supporters on Tuesday after voting in Sugoi, about 200 miles northwest of Nairobi.Brian Inganga/Associated PressThe critical question in the coming days, however, is not only who won the race, but whether the loser will accept defeat.It can get murky.Days before the last vote, in 2017, a senior electoral official, Chris Msando, was brutally murdered, his tortured body dumped in a forest outside Nairobi alongside his girlfriend, Carol Ngumbu. A post-mortem found they had been strangled.The death of Mr. Msando, who was in charge of the results transmission system, immediately aroused suspicion of a link to vote rigging. Weeks later when Mr. Odinga challenged the election result in court, he claimed that the electoral commission’s server had been hacked by people using Mr. Msando’s credentials.The election was eventually rerun — Mr. Kenyatta won — but the killings were never solved.The nadir of Kenyan elections, though, came in 2007 when a dispute over results plunged the country into a maelstrom of ethnic violence that went on for months, killing over 1,200 people and, some analysts said, nearly tipped the country into an all-out civil war.In one notorious episode, a mob set fire to a church outside the town of Eldoret, burning to death the women, children and older people hiding inside.Maasai waiting to vote outside a polling station at Niserian Primary School, in Kajiado County, Kenya, on Tuesday.Ben Curtis/Associated PressThe trauma of those days still scars voters like Jane Njoki, who woke up on Tuesday in Nakuru, 100 miles northwest of Nairobi, with mixed feelings about casting her vote.Her family lost everything in 2007 after mobs of machete-wielding men descended on their town in the Rift Valley, torching their house and killing Ms. Njoki’s brother and uncle, she said. Since then, each election season has been a reminder of how her family held hasty funerals in case the attackers returned.“Elections are always trouble,” she said.That bloodshed drew the attention of the International Criminal Court which tried, unsuccessfully, to prosecute senior politicians including Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto on charges of inciting violence.But the crisis also led Kenyans to adopt a new constitution in 2010 that devolved some powers to the local level and helped stabilize a democracy that, for all its flaws, is today considered among the strongest in the region.Waiting to vote early in the morning at St. Stephen School in the informal settlement of Mathare in Nairobi, on Tuesday.Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Post-conflict societies rarely earn the right lessons, but I think Kenya did,” said Murithi Mutiga, Africa Program Director at the International Crisis Group. “It adopted a new constitution with a relatively independent judiciary that led to a more constrained presidency. The rest of the region could learn from it.”On Tuesday, unofficial results from the vote flowed in. The election commission posted tallies from polling stations to its website as they became available, allowing newspapers, political parties and other groups to compile the unofficial results.By midnight, the election commission website showed that 81 percent of 46,229 polling stations had submitted their results electronically. But those results had not been tabulated or verified against the paper originals, which analysts say could take a few days.The winning candidate needs over 50 percent of the vote, as well as one quarter of the vote in 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties. Failure to meet that bar means a runoff within 30 days.That could happen if a third candidate, George Wajackoyah — who is campaigning on a platform of marijuana legalization and, more unusually, the sale to China of hyena testicles, said to be of medicinal value — can convert his sliver of support into votes, denying the main candidates a majority.But the most likely outcome in the coming days, analysts say, is a court challenge.Any citizen or group can challenge the results at the Supreme Court within seven days. If the results are challenged, the court must deliver its decision within two weeks. If judges nullify the results, as they did in 2017, a fresh vote must be held within 60 days.In recent weeks, both Mr. Odinga and Mr. Ruto have accused the election commission and other state bodies of bias, apparently sowing the ground for a legal challenge — only, of course, if they lose.Both of the main candidates have previously been accused of using street power to influence elections.But most Kenyans desperately hope that the trauma of 2007 — or the grisly murder mystery of 2017 — are far behind them.Whatever happens in the coming days or weeks, many say they hope it will be resolved in the courts, not on the streets.Declan Walsh More

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    In the Kenyan Election, A Fierce Battle to Lead an African Powerhouse

    Kenyans vote for a new president on Tuesday, ending a heated race that shows why, in a troubled region, the East African nation matters more than ever.KANGARI, Kenya — The helicopter swooped over the lush tea and coffee fields flanking Mount Kenya, Africa’s second highest peak, and touched down outside a small highland town where William Ruto, the self-proclaimed leader of Kenya’s “hustler nation,” stepped out.Mr. Ruto, a front-runner in next Tuesday’s presidential election, is pinning his hopes on what he calls Kenya’s “hustlers” — the masses of frustrated young people, most of them poor, who just want to get ahead. He delights supporters with his account of how he was once so poor that he sold chickens on the roadside, and with his spirited attacks on rivals he portrays as elitist and out of touch.“I grew up wearing secondhand clothes,” he boasted to a roaring crowd in Kangari, where farmers and traders crowded around his election vehicle, a canary yellow, blinged-out stretch S.U.V. “Every Hustle Matters,” read the slogan on its door.The odd thing is that Mr. Ruto has already been in power for the past nine years, as the vice-president of Kenya. And he has become a very wealthy man, with interests in land, luxury hotels and, perhaps fittingly, a major chicken processing plant.Contradictions abound in this Kenyan election, a blistering and unpredictable contest between Mr. Ruto, 55, and Raila Odinga, a veteran 77-year-old opposition politician who is making his fifth bid for the presidency, having failed in the first four. But the perennial outsider is now cast as the insider after striking an alliance with the man who for years was his bitter enemy — the outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta.Supporters at a Ruto rally in Machakos, last month.Yasuyoshi Chiba / Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDays from the vote, the race is a nail-biter — a sharp contrast with many other African countries, like Uganda and Mali, where once-high democratic hopes have given way to sham votes and military coups. To its Western allies, that underscores why Kenya matters more than ever. Since its first competitive multiparty elections 20 years ago, the East African nation has emerged as a burgeoning technology hub, a key counterterrorism partner, a source of world-class athletes and an anchor of stability in a region roiled by starvation and strife.Kenyans are enthusiastic voters, with an 80 percent turnout in the 2017 election (compared with 52 percent for the United States presidential race a year earlier); on Tuesday 22.1 million registered voters will choose candidates for six races, including president, parliament and local bodies.The vote comes at an anxious time for weary Kenyans. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have pummeled their economy, which is straining under billions of dollars in debt for Chinese-built road and rail projects. In the north, a devastating four-year drought threatens 4 million people with starvation.But this race is less about issues than a titanic clash of personalities, of age against ambition — peppered with a steady stream of personalized attacks.Mr. Ruto, a charismatic and ambitious leader with a ruthless edge, mocks Mr. Odinga as “the Riddle man,” a dig at his tendency to quote folksy proverbs and riddles, and as a “project” of his ally, Mr. Kenyatta.Raila Odinga at a campaign rally in Kirigiti Stadium, in Kiambu, on Monday.Ed Ram/Getty ImagesMr. Odinga, a veteran leftist who estimates that corruption costs Kenya millions every day, has another word for his opponent. “The thief is?” he asked the crowd during a rally in Machakos, 40 miles from Nairobi, on a recent afternoon.“Ruto!” replied his supporters.Accusations that Mr. Ruto’s team is prone to graft (or, at least, more prone than its opponents) were bolstered by the courts last week when the High Court ordered his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua, to forfeit $1.7 million in illicitly acquired government funds. Mr. Gachagua, whose bank accounts were frozen by a government anti-corruption agency in 2020, is appealing the judgment, which he rejected as politically motivated.Mr. Odinga also faces accusations of unsavory compromise. The son of Kenya’s first vice-president, he spent most of his career on the opposition benches. He personalizes a sense of grievance among his fellow Luo, Kenya’s fourth largest ethnic group, who have never had a president.After weeks of neck-and-neck polling, the latest figures give Mr. Odinga a clear lead. He is boosted by the buzz around his running mate, Martha Karua, seen as a principled politician with a long record of activism who, if elected, would become Kenya’s first female vice-president.Supporters of Mr. Odinga’s party in Kisumu, on Thursday.Patrick Meinhardt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOne wild-card is a third candidate, George Wajackoyah, who has captured a small but boisterous protest vote on the back of his proposals to legalize marijuana and, more outlandishly, to export hyena testicles to China (where they are said to have medicinal value).If Mr. Wajackoyah can hold onto his slice of the vote, as much as 3 percent in the polls, he could deny Mr. Ruto or Mr. Raila the 50 percent majority needed to win, and trigger a second round of voting 30 days later.One of the biggest forces in the race is not on the ticket. The current president, Mr. Kenyatta, turned politics upside down in 2018 when he struck a political deal known as “the handshake” with Mr. Odinga.The alliance ended an enmity between Kenya’s two great political dynasties that stretched back to 1969, when Mr. Kenyatta’s father, then president, imprisoned Mr. Odinga’s father, an opposition leader, for 18 months.But for many Kenyans, the handshake was little more than “the children of kings” doing a deal to benefit themselves, said Njoki Wamai, assistant professor of international relations at the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi.President Uhuru Kenyatta, turned politics upside down in 2018 when he struck a political deal known as “the handshake” with Mr. Odinga.Thomas Mukoya/ReutersMr. Ruto, stung by a perceived betrayal, built up his own base in Mr. Kenyatta’s political backyard in Mount Kenya, the ethnic Kikuyu-dominated area that accounts for about one-quarter of the Kenyan electorate.The vitriol between the two men is never far from the surface. “You have enough money, security and cars,” Mr. Ruto told a rally recently, addressing the president. “Now go home.”“Don’t vote for thieves,” Mr. Kenyatta told his supporters days later. “Or you’ll regret it.”One obstacle facing both candidates is apathy. Younger Kenyans in particular say they are turned off by the byzantine feuds, alliances and back room deals that preoccupy their leaders.Evans Atika, a barber from Nairobi’s South C neighborhood, fits the profile of a typical “hustler.” But having voted in 2017, he intends to stay home this time. “They’re all the same,” he said. “They lie. They made promises they can’t keep.”Kenya’s elections are among the most elaborate and expensive in the world. This one is expected to cost $370 million, using ballots with more security features than the country’s currency notes. But elections here have a history of going awry.Employees of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission arranging ballot boxes and election material at a tallying center in Nairobi, on Thursday.Baz Ratner/ReutersWidespread violence following a disputed result in 2007 led to over 1,200 deaths, displaced 600,000 people and triggered an International Criminal Court investigation into politicians accused of bankrolling death squads and fomenting ethnic hatred. Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto, were indicted with crimes against humanity.But by 2016, both cases had collapsed, following what one judge called “a troubling incidence of witness interference and intolerable political meddling.”Other Kenyan elections have resulted in courtroom disputes that ended with judges overturning the results. And days before the last poll, in 2017, a senior election commission official was found brutally murdered in a remote wood outside Nairobi.The case was never solved.This time, worries about widespread, election-related violence are lower, human rights monitors say. But in recent weeks, some residents in ethnically mixed areas, especially in the Rift Valley which saw the worst unrest in previous polls, have voluntarily moved to the safety of larger towns.Much will depend, though, on the final result. Kenya’s election commission has one week to declare a winner, although analysts expect that the losing side will lodge a legal challenge, prolonging the contest.One bright spot, amid the mudslinging, is the potential for a sea change in the corrosive ethnic politics that have dominated Kenya for decades. The shifting alliances mean that, for the first time, millions of voters are expected to cross ethnic lines, especially around Mount Kenya where, for the first time, Kikuyus will have to vote for a candidate from another group.“I love that man,” Michael Muigai, a self-identified “hustler,” said after the rally for Mr. Ruto in Kangari.Mr. Muigai, who is 22, is working construction on a Chinese road building project to make his fees for a deferred college placement. He said he didn’t care that Mr. Ruto is an ethnic Kalenjin, and shrugged off media reports linking him to corruption.“Past is past,” he said.Election posters in Nairobi.Baz Ratner/ReutersDeclan Walsh More