Former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga took the lead in Kenya’s tightly contested presidential race on Saturday 13 August, according to official results reported by Reuters.
With just over 26% of votes counted, Odinga had 54% and Ruto had 45%.
In order to win, candidates need to secure more than half the ballots cast and at least 25% of the votes in half of Kenya’s 47 counties. The absence of a definitive result will trigger fresh elections within 30 days.
A new chief in town
Odinga’s main opponent, deputy president William Ruto, took an early lead in the counting, but this was due to counting of votes from his strongholds first, says Ben Hunter, Africa analyst at UK-based risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.
“But the vote margins per county mean that Raila Odinga will be president,” he predicts.
As incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta’s anointed successor, Odinga of the Azimio La Umoja (Delcaration of Unity) coalition party is seen as the continuity candidate and the safest bet for investors.
His social platform also spans to boosting social spending with a monthly grants of $50 (KSh6,000) to two million poor families, universal health care and free education from early childhood to tertiary level.
Odinga also promises to “restructure and reprofile” Kenya’s $68.8bn debt with creditors to make it sustainable and remove the need for future bailouts, a pledge which is at odds with Ruto’s plans to address debt by mobilising taxes.
As the son of Kenya’s first vice-president, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who served under Uhuru Kenyatta’s father, Jomo, he is seen as a scion of an entrenched political dynasty.
The former political prisoner qualified as a mechanical engineer in the former East Germany and briefly lectured at the University of Nairobi before entering politics. He was jailed for six years for participating in the failed 1982 coup and has been imprisoned intermittently for campaigning for greater political freedoms.
The 77-year old front-runner has business interests ranging from importing fuel and manufacturing gas cylinders, with his success provoking allegations of corruption.
Self-styled as the champion of the poor, Ruto seeks to empower Kenya’s “hustler nation” of informal workers by investing in agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
“He has portrayed Odinga as elitist on the economy and spun plans to fund employment training programs as essential help for the every-day Kenyan,” says Hunter.
Ruto has also pledged to launch an annual $420m “hustler fund” which aims to provide credits at an affordable rate to 10 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Tinder box
With East Africa’s economic powerhouse in the throes of a two-year drought and sharp food price inflation, tensions could ignite election violence in areas populated by ethnic groups allied with the losing candidate as the results are announced.
“The police have not been significantly reformed since they killed dozens of protestors in 2017,” says Hunter.
Kenya’s debt rose to $68.8bn in 2021, from just $37.7bn, or 34% of GDP, when current president Uhuru Kenyatta was re-elected in 2017.
Of that 63% of bilateral debt is owed to China – approximately $7bn – mainly for large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Nairobi Expressway, which cost $668m, according to the World Bank.
