2013 Presidential Elections
A Synovate survey released in October 2012 found him to have an 45 percent approval rate.
Raila Odinga's party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) joined Kalonzo Musyoka's Wiper Party and Moses Wetangula's Ford Kenya (FK) in a CORD coalition (Coalition for Reforms and Democracy) for the presidential race with Raila as the presidential candidate and Kalonzo as his running mate to face Jubilee's coalition ( Uhuru Kenyatta 's (The National Alliance – TNA), William Ruto 's (United Republican Party – URP), Charity Ngilu 's (National Rainbow Coalition – NARC) and Najib Balala 's (Republican Congress – RC)).
In addition, few individuals from western countries led by former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan had tried to influence in favour of Raila the Kenyan voters by issuing threats if they chose Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Most notable statement from Annan was "Choices have consequences."
Raila ran for President in the elections held on 4 March 2013 and garnered 5,340,546 votes (43.70%) out of the 12,338,667 valid votes cast. The winner, Uhuru Kenyatta garnered 6,173,433 votes (50.51%). As this was above the 50% plus 1 vote threshold, Uhuru won it on the first round without requiring a run-off between the top two candidates.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) therefore officially declared Uhuru Kenyatta the president elect on Saturday 9 March at 2:44pm. Uhuru was set to take office as Kenya's 4th president.
However, Raila Odinga in a press conference shortly after the results were announced noted that the election had been marred by massive failures by the BVR kits, Pollbooks, tallying system and transmissions system. He claimed that the manual tallying was suspect leaving him no choice but to The Kenya Presidential Election Petition 2013 contest the result in Kenya's highest court, The Supreme Court.
Kenya's chief justice Dr. Willy Mutunga announced on Monday, 11 March that the Supreme Court was fully formed and ready to deliver its judgements within 14 days as stipulated by the constitution of Kenya.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling dismissing the petition on 30 March 2013. The Supreme Court while declaring Uhuru the next President also declared that the IEBC should not have included the invalid/spoilt votes in the calculation of the final figures and percentages.
After the supreme court dismissed his petition Raila flew to South Africa to avoid attending Inauguration of Uhuru Kenyatta held on 9 April 2013 at Moi Sports Complex at Kasarani, Nairobi. The swearing ceremony marked the end of his premiership.
Read more about this topic: Raila Odinga
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