Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, on Tuesday said a re-run of August’s nullified presidential election would go ahead as planned on October 26 after opposition leader, Raila Odinga, said he was withdrawing from the race.
“We have no problem going back to elections. We are sure we will get more votes than the last time,” Kenyatta told a rally in the southern town of Voi, speaking in Kiswahili.
Odinga had announced his withdrawal from the presidential re-run elections scheduled for October 26.
Odinga said at a news conference in Nairobi that he was boycotting the polls because his demands for electoral reform had not been met.
A re-run of the presidential vote was announced after Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified the result of the August 8 election due to Odinga’s complaint.
Odinga claimed that the computers of the electoral commission had been hacked to generate a victory for President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The initial results announced on August 11, gave Kenyatta a second term with 54 per cent of the votes, followed by Odinga with 44.7 per cent.
Since the annulment, Odinga and his National Super Alliance coalition have been demanding the removal of top managers of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and a change of suppliers of polling materials and technology.
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