Kenya elections: Kenyatta wins 50.03% of vote count
Kenyan Police officers stand guard at the entrance of a polling station where Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officers work on March 7, 2013 in Nairobi. Kenya’s presidential election was plunged into further disarray today after the party of one of the leading candidates alleged vote-rigging and demanded that the count be halted.
Kenya’s election commission has announced that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has captured 50.03 percent of the vote in Kenya's presidential election, the Associated Press reported.
That's enough to win him the presidency without requiring a run-off election against rival candidate Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Kenyatta passed the 50 percent threshold required for an outright win by a mere 4,099 votes out of more than 12.3 million cast, the AP reported.
Kenyatta had led results since vote counting started on Monday but, Reuters noted, he had swung above and below the 50 percent mark.
The official result of the election will be announced at 11:00 a.m. Saturday local time (08:00 GMT), BBC News reported.
Odinga is expected to file a legal challenge if he officially loses the race, according to BBC News.
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Kenyatta, the son of the country's first president, is facing charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Hague for fueling the violence following elections in 2007.
The communal violence which followed those elections left 1,000 people dead and forced 600,000 from their homes. Kenyatta has denied the ICC's accusations.
"This is going to pose a very awkward situation," said Jendayi Frazer, a former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, according to The New York Times. "Kenyatta knows he needs the United States, and the United States knows it needs Kenya."
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