Presidential Candidate Wahiga Mwaure Endorses Dp Ruto as The Winner of This Election as he Concedes Defeat
Agano party presidential candidate David Mwaure Waihiga has conceded defeat ahead of the official announcement of Tuesday’s presidential election results.
Waihiga, who has been trailing fourth in the presidential contest, also endorsed Kenya Kwanza’s opponent William Ruto at a press conference in Nairobi on Sunday, August 14, 2022.
“As we concede we also endorse the winning friend and the person of his Excellency William Ruto and urge IEBC to be fervent in declaring his win when it’s time to do so,” Waihiga said.
He said he chose to back Ruto because his manifesto aligns with that of the Agano party.
“We agree with him on the need to ensure Kenya remains a God-fearing nation. We also agree with him on his pursuit to ensure freedom of worship for all faith is maintained and his promise to ensure the church and other faith are protected,” he added.
“We also agree with him on his stand on the Christian churches and other faiths’ values and values that are accepted by our African cultures.”
Meanwhile,The long delay by the IEBC in announcing the final verified results of the August 9 presidential election is starting to lead to confusion. There have been conflicting reports about the state of the vote count.
The IEBC latest verified Form 34 Bs show William Ruto leading Raila Odinga. Reuters reports that Ruto is leading Raila with 52 percent of the vote in its nearly complete tally of Form 34As.
A Radio Africa tally of all Form 34Bs (provisional and yet to be fully verified by the IEBC) shows that Ruto received 50.36 percent of the vote compared to 48.88 percent for Raila.
The tally shows Ruto has won 126 constituencies with 7,152,655 votes while Raila has taken 146 constituencies with 6,942,708 votes with 18 constituencies pending (excluding diaspora and prisons) – a difference of 209,947 votes.
Radio Africa is updating the final tally of the remaining 49 polling stations with 34, 815 outstanding votes. However the IEBC has not yet verified and officially released all the Form 34Bs so the figures should be treated with caution.
On Saturday Royal Media Services, the owner of Citizen TV, and Standard Group in a press release called the August 9 election in favour of the Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga. A press statement released on Saturday stated that Raila Amolo Odinga received 51.13% of the vote and William Ruto 48.22%. The press release was signed by S. K Macharia for Royal Media Services and Gideon Moi for Standard Group.
The two media house have however not released a detailed polling station by polling station count of their results to the public.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission is still double-checking the Form 34As from over 46,229 polling stations in the 291 constituencies. As of Sunday morning, it had released the verified Form 34Bs (consolidated from Form 34As) from 135 out of 291 constituencies which showed that William Ruto was leading Raila Odinga with 3,511,573 votes, 51.3 percent of the verified total, compared to 3,284,316 votes, 48.0 percent of the verified total.
The IEBC has made all Form 34As and Form 34Bs available at its portal.
The international news agency Reuters is also reporting in its stories that Ruto is leading the vote, according to the collated Form 34Bs.
“Reuters news agency and other media outlets have been tallying results forms from 291 constituencies posted on the election commission website. These have not yet been verified, and this tally is running well ahead of the official one. As of 2100 GMT (Saturday), Reuters had tallied 241 forms, which showed Ruto in the lead with nearly 52.3% of the vote, compared to 47% for Odinga. Two other candidates had less than 1% between them. Thirty other forms could not be included in the count because they were unreadable or were missing information such as signatures, constituency names, or totals”, Reuters is declaring..
In polls ahead just of the election, TIFA, Infotrak and IPSOS called the elections for Raila Odinga with an 8 percent, 7 percent and 6 percent lead respectively while the Radio Africa poll called it for William Ruto with a 1 percent lead.
