A young man with a bullet lodged in his chest surviving on oxygen as he receives assistance from Kenya Red Cross volunteers in Homabay. PHOTO/TWITTER/KENYA WEST
The international media has the repeat presidential elections held on Thursday were marred with chaos and low voter turnout. Below are stories from leading global newspapers that include The Guardian, New York Times, Bloomberg, BBC and Quartz.
Low Voter Turnout, Violence Mar Chaotic Kenya Election Rerun
Less than half of registered voters cast ballots in a chaotic rerun of Kenya’s annulled presidential elections, in which an opposition boycott guarantees a win for incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta but raises concern over its legitimacy.
The vote was marred by violent clashes between opposition supporters and members of the security forces in the capital, Nairobi, and the west of the country on Thursday that claimed the lives of at least five people. The Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission postponed the vote in counties that are strongholds of opposition leader Raila Odinga until Saturday.
Read More https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-27/low-voter-turnout-violence-mar-chaotic-kenya-election-rerun
Low Turnout in Kenya’s Do-Over Election Raises Concerns
It took the police the better part of two hours to haul away the bricks that had been stacked, at some point in the night, in front of the polling station at the Olympic Primary School.
But few people in the sprawling Nairobi neighborhood of Kibera — as in many other places across Kenya — wanted anything to do with Thursday’s historic vote for president. Some Kibera residents spent the day lobbing stones at the police, while the police spent the day firing tear gas back.
“This vote is a massive flop, whichever way you cut it,” said Maina Kiai, a leader of a Kenyan civil society coalition and a former United Nations special rapporteur.
Read More https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/world/africa/kenya-election-boycott-kenyatta-odinga.html
Kenyan president says he is willing to negotiate after election boycott
President Uhuru Kenyatta has raised the prospect of negotiations with his opponent as millions of Kenyans voted in a contentious election rerun marred by a widely observed boycott and sporadic violence.
Four people died as opposition supporters and police clashed outside polling stations, forcing election officials to postpone voting in parts of the country until Saturday.
The rerun is the latest twist in a long and increasingly chaotic political saga, which has polarised the country, and looks unlikely to end soon.
Read More https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/26/kenyans-election-rerun-contested-kenyatta-odinga
Only a third of Kenyans voted in the repeat presidential election
Election officials in Kenya have said less than 35% of voters came out to cast their ballot in Thursday’s (Oct. 26) repeat presidential election.
Wafula Chebukati, the election commission chairman, said 6.5 million Kenyans out of the 19.6 million registered participated in the election—a staggeringly low number in a country where voter turnout has always been high. In the annulled elections of Aug. 8 alone, the leading two candidates, president Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, received a total of 15 million votes.
Read More https://qz.com/1113489/kenya-elections-2017-early-numbers-show-low-turnout-for-kenyatta-vs-odinga-redo-election/
Kenya election: Turnout under 34% amid opposition boycott
Kenya’s electoral commission says fewer than 34% of registered voters took part in Thursday’s re-run of the presidential election.
The figure is sharply down on the initial poll in August, when nearly 80% of the electorate voted.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga had called on his supporters to boycott the poll.
Voting has been suspended until Saturday in four areas where opposition supporters clashed with police.
Read More http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41773919
