William Ruto wins Kenya presidential election amid scuffles at count centre
William Ruto has been declared the winner of Kenya’s presidential election – moments after the main count was interrupted as scuffles broke out.
Mr Ruto is currently the country’s deputy president and has beaten opposition leader Raila Odinga to the top job after winning 50.49% of the vote, Sky News reports.
“We are here this evening to witness this momentous occasion as the people of Kenya restate what is in article one of the constitution of Kenya that all sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya,” Mr Ruto said after his victory was announced.
“I want to thank God for getting us to this point, I want to thank God that today we have concluded this election.
“There were predictions that we wouldn’t get here, but because there is a God in heaven we are here, and I want to, in a very special way, to say, and to confess, that without God we wouldn’t have been here.”
It is a triumph for Mr Ruto who shook up politics by appealing to struggling Kenyans on economic terms and not on traditional ethnic ones.
Despite being sidelined by the president, he had told voters that the election was between “hustlers” like him from modest backgrounds and the “dynasties” of outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, whose fathers were Kenya’s first president and vice president.
Mr Odinga has sought the presidency for a quarter of a century.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Ruto also thanked Mr Odinga and emphasised an election that focused on issues and not ethnic divisions, saying that “gratitude goes to millions of Kenyans who refused to be boxed into tribal cocoons”.
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